JOHN    WYCLIFFE 


THE    FIRST    ENGLISH    BIBLE 


AN    ORATIor 


V 


BY 


RICHARD   S.  STORRS,  D.D.,  LL.D 


1931 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE 


THE    FIRST    ENGLISH    BIBLE 


AN    ORATION 


BY 

RICHARD   S.  STORRS,  D.D.,LL.D 


NEW    YORK 
ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    &    COMPANY 

900   BROADWAY,    COR.    20th    STREET 
iSSo 


COPYRIGHT,    iSSo,    BY 
ANSON   D.    F.    RANDOLPH   &    COMPANY. 


Edward  O.  Jenkins, 

Printer  and  Stereotyper, 

3o  AW/A   WUUam  Street^  New  York. 


With  a  view  to  commemorate  the  services  of  the 
eminent  Reformer,  to  whom,  more  than  to  any  other 
person,  the  world  is  indebted  for  the  first  translation 
of  the  Holy  Bible  into  the  English  language,  the 
Board  of  Managers  of  the  American  Bible  Society 
invited  the  Rev.  Dr.  Richard  S.  Starrs  to  deliver  a 
public  Oratio7i  upon  the  life  and  work  of  John 
Wycliffe.  In  compliance  with  that  invitation  the 
following  discourse  was  projiounced  in  the  Acadony 
of  Music,  Nezv  York,  on  the  evening  of  Thursday, 
December  2d,  18S0,  before  a  very  large  assembly,  repre- 
senting all  the  branches  of  the  Christian  Church 
which  are  7i7iited  in  the  zvork  of  circulating  the  Holy 
Scripttires  among  all  nations,  through  the  agency  of 
the  American  Bible  Society. 


Author's    Note. 

On  account  of  the  length  of  the  following  dis- 
course, portions  of  it  were  ojnitted  in  the  delivery, 
which  are  retained  in  the  printed  copies. 

Occasiojial  foot-notes  have  been  added,  visually 
to  supply  support  or  ilhistration  to  statements  in  the 
textj  sometimes  to  suggest  to  those  interested  by  the 
subject,  and  wishing  to  7nake  further  inq2dry  about 
it,  szich  books,  or  parts  of  books,  commonly  accessible, 
as  will  be  likely  to  afford  the  readiest  assistance. 


ORATION. 


Mr.  President  :  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen  : 

On  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  on  the  site  of  the 
ancient  Roman  camp,  afterward  an  imperial  colony, 
which  is  associated  in  history  with  Tiberius  and  Ger- 
manicus,  with  Agrippina,  mother  of  Nero,  and  with 
the  early  fame  of  Trajan,  has  been  recently  completed 
a  magnificent  work  of  religion  and  of  art,  of  which 
more  than  six  centuries  have  witnessed  the  progress. 
After  delays  immensely  protracted,  after  such  changes 
in  society  and  government,  in  letters,  arts,  and  in 
prevalent  forms  of  religious  faith,  that  the  age  which 
saw  its  solemn  foundation  has  come  to  seem  almost 
mythical  to  us,  by  contributions  in  which  peoples  have 
vied  with  princes,  and  in  which  separated  countries 
and  communions  have  gladly  united,  the  cathedral  of 
Cologne  has  been  carried  to  its  superb  consumma- 
tion, and  the  last  finial  has  been  set  upon  the  spires 
which  at  length  fulfil  the  architect's  design. 

Attendant  pomps,  of  imperial  pageantry,  were 
naturally  assembled  on  such  an  occasion  ;  but  they 
can  have  added  no  real  impressiveness  to  the  struct- 

(9) 


lo  Oration  at  New   y'ork. 

ure  itself,  with  its  solid  strength  matching  its  lofty 
and  lovely  proportions,  the  vast  columns  of  the  nave 
lifting  upon  them  plume-like  pillars,  the  majestic 
choir,  of  stone  and  glass,  with  its  soft  brilliance  and 
exquisite  tracery,  beautiful  as  a  poet's  dream,  the 
soaring  open-work  of  the  spires,  absorbing  and  mould- 
ing hills  of  rock  in  their  supreme  and  ethereal  grace. 
It  seems  impossible  not  to  apply  to  it  the  words  which 
Gibbon  applied  to  St.  Peter's  :  "  the  most  glorious 
structure  that  ever  has  been  applied  to  the  use  of 
religion."  "  It  is  impossible  not  to  rejoice  that  the 
common  sentiments  of  beauty  and  of  worship  survive 
the  changes  of  civilization,  so  that  distant  centuries 
join  hands  in  the  work  now  fmishcd  and  crowned, 
and  the  completion  of  this  grandest  of  cathedrals  in 
Northern  Europe  fitly  attracts  the  attention  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

It  is  a  work  at  first  sight  insignificant  in  compari- 
son with  this,  which  we  have  met  to  commemorate 
this  evening :  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into 
the  common  English  tongue,  begun  by  John  Wyc- 
liffe  five  centuries  ago,  and  brought  to  completeness 
in  these  recent  days  by  the  hands  of  English  and 
American  scholars.  It  may  seem  that  the  vision  of 
the  majestic  cathedral  is  too  stately  and  splendid  to  be 
set  in  front  of  a  story  so  simple,  and  in  parts  so 
familiar,  as  that  which  we  are  here  to  recall.  But  I 
think  it  will  appear  that  the  work  which  we  celebrate 

*  "Decline  and  Fall,"  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  466. 


The  Book,  nobler   than  the  Bziilding.         1 1  • 

is  the  nobler  of  the  two  ;  that  from  all  the  costly  and 
skillful  labors,  now  completed  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  we  arise  to  this :  even  as  there  one  advances 
to  the  altar,  supreme  in  its  significance,  through  the 
decorated  doorways,  along  the  vast  nave,  and  under 
the  rhythmic  and  haughty  arches.  To  us,  at  least,  the 
voice  of  God  becomes  articulate  through  the  book  ; 
while  the  building  only  shows  us  the  magnificent 
achievement  of  human  genius,  patience,  and  wealth, 
bringing  to  Him  their  unsurpassed  tribute. 

It  is,  however,  a  very  plain  tale  which  I  have  to 
tell ;  and  the  interest  of  it  must  lie  in  its  substance, 
not  in  any  ornaments  of  language  or  of  thought 
associated  with  it.  In  order  to  tell  or  to  hear  it 
aright  we  have  to  recall  many  things  \vhich  lie  back 
of  it,  which  alone  can  set  it  clearly  before  us. 

That  the  governing  authorities  in  the  Christian 
world  should  have  ever  refused  to  the  revered  Script- 
ures, on  which  the  common  faith  was  founded,  the 
widest  distribution  in  the  various  languages  spoken 
by  the  peoples  holding  that  faith,  is  a  fact  so  peculiar 
that  we  easily  ascribe  it  to  a  crafty  ambition  or  an 
arrogant  self-will,  and  dismiss  it  as  thus  superficially 
explained.  We  forget  how  deeply  rooted  it  was  in 
an  immense  system  of  thought  and  of  government, 
and  through  what  silent  organic  processes  it  came  to 
evolution  into  custom  and  rule. 

Of  course  it  contradicted  the  earlier  usage  and  plan 
of  the  Church.     The  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic  Scriptures 


12  Oratio7i  at  New   York. 

had  been  written  in  the  dialects  famihar  to  the  people 
among  whom  and  for  whom  they  were  prepared, 
before  and  after  the  Eastern  captivity.  When  Greek 
became  a  customary  speech,  with  those  dispersed  in 
distant  cities,  the  Alexandrian  version  of  these  Script- 
ures was  made ;  and,  as  we  know,  in  the  time  of  the 
Master,  it  was  commonly  read  and  reverently  ex- 
pounded by  the  teachers  of  religion,  as  it  afterward 
Ions:  continued  in  use  with  Christian  converts. 

The  Evangelists  and  Apostles,  after  the  Lord  had 
left  the  earth,  WTOte  accounts  of  his  life,  with  argu- 
ments of  doctrine,  precepts,  promises,  and  prophetic 
admonitions,  in  the  language  familiar  to  themselves 
and  their  disciples — the  vigorous,  copious,  Hellenistic 
Greek,  to  which  the  commerce  of  the  time  had  given 
wide  distribution,  while  the  Septuagint  had  given  it 
consecration.  They  sought  to  reach  not  scholars 
only,  or  lettered  persons,  but  all  peoples  who  shared 
in  the  general  culture,  and  all  classes  of  people,  with 
the  writings  upon  which  their  souls  were  engaged, 
and  in  which  they  felt  themselves  moved  and  helped 
by  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  preference  of  St.  Paul 
was  shared  by  all ;  it  was  his  preference  when  dictat- 
ing or  tracing  the  large  and  slow  characters,  as  well 
as  when  preaching :  "  I  had  rather  speak  five  words 
with  my  understanding,  that  by  my  voice  I  might 
teach  others  also,  than  ten  thousand  words  in  an 
unknown  tongue."  And  it  w^as  by  these  Scriptures, 
in  the  language  which  then  had  chief  currency  in  the 


The  Early   Translatio7is.  13 

world,  and  in  which  the  Roman  Law  itself  was  sub- 
sequently written,  that  the  knowledge  of  Hirri  in 
whom  is  the  light  and  the  hope  of  mankind  was  soon 
distributed  over  vast  spaces. 

Yet  again,  as  subsequent  need  arose  that  the 
Scriptures  be  put  mto  other  languages,  to  reach  more 
directly  remoter  peoples,  this  was  done  without  op- 
position, with  encouragement  indeed,  of  Church  au- 
thorities. So  came  the  early  Latin  versions,  for  use 
in  North  Africa  or  in  Italy,  in  the  second  century. 
So  came  the  later  translation  of  Jerome,  from  the 
originals,  which  became  aftenvard  practically  the 
Bible  of  Western  Christendom.  The  Syriac  version, 
which  before  the  end  of  the  second  century  carried 
the  Scriptures  to  the  Euphrates,  followed  by  others 
in  the  same  tongue ;  the  Thebaic,  and  Memphitic, 
which  made  them  equally  at  home  on  the  Nile  ;  the 
iEthiopic,  of  the  fourth  century ;  the  Gothic,  of  the 
same  period,  made  by  Ulphilas  ;  the  Armenian,  of  the 
fifth  century  ;  the  Arabic,  Persian,  and  all  the  others, 
to  the  Sclavonic  of  the  ninth  century,  reveal  the  same 
impulse  of  wisdom  and  zeal,  as  all  are  designed  to 
bring  the  quickening  Word  of  God  into  contact  with 
those  to  whom  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  were  not 
familiar.  Certainly,  for  centuries  after  the  Ascension, 
it  would  have  seemed  as  absurd  to  restrain  the  Script- 
ures to  languages  not  understood  by  the  people,  as  it 
would  have  been  on  the  crest  of  Olivet  to  thrust  veils, 
-of  darkness   beneath  the  cloud  which  received  the 


14  Oration  at  New   York. 

Lord,  and  to  leave  the  disciples  uncertain  of  His 
glory.  The  latest  and  fiercest  Roman  persecution, 
under  Galerius  and  Diocletian,  aimed  especially  to 
destroy  the  Church  by  destroying  its  sacred  and  life- 
giving  books. 

Perhaps  nothing  else  more  signally  shows  the  novel 
and  alien  character  of  the  power  which  in  subsequent 
centuries  grew  up  in  Christendom  than  does  the  fact 
that  it  wholly  departed  from  these  primitive  traditions, 
and  wrought  against  them,  of  settled  purpose,  with 
restless  energy,  by  an  instinct  of  its  nature.  I  need 
not  repeat  the  story  of  its  rise.  I  may  only  remind 
you  how  its  portentous  physical  development  allied 
itself  naturally  with  a  peculiar  doctrine  and  tem- 
per, as  the  primitive  popular  church-organization, 
whose  picture  is  ineffaceably  preserved  on  immortal 
records,  gave  place  by  degrees  to  the  splendid  and 
vast  imperial  system,  enthroned  in  the  capital  which 
still  fascinates  the  fancy  and  awes  the  imagination  of 
the  cultivated  world,  having  prelates  for  its  princes, 
and  extending  its  sway  more  widely  over  Europe  than 
had  the  Empire  which  it  followed  and  surpassed. 

This  system  was  by  no  means  wholly  for  evil.  Un- 
doubtedly, certain  needs  of  the  time  found  in  it  their 
special  supply,  and  important  benefits  to  mediseval 
society  are  fairly  ascribed  to  it.  It  held  the  tumultu- 
ous populations  of  Europe  to  some  degree  of  civil- 
ized order,  amid  stupendous  changes  and  strifes,  the 
fall  of  the  Empire,  the  in-rush  of  barbarians  from  wood 


Benefits  of  Church  Imperialism.  15 

and  waste,  the  utter  breaking  up  of  the  ancient  gov- 
erning order  of   things.     When    the  sovereignty  of 
force  threatened  to  become  the  law  of  the  planet,  it 
asserted  the  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  order  over  the 
secular,  in  Divine  adjustments.     It  built  monasteries, 
for  those  who  sought  equally  seclusion  and  society, 
with  industry,  study,  and  the  worship  of  God.     It 
defended  those  monasteries  by  sanctions  of  religion, 
which  even  breasts  that  wore  mail,  and  hands  that 
held   lances,   had   to  regard.     It  preserved  in  their 
libraries  the  scattered  remains  of  the  classical  litera- 
ture, as  well  as  the  Scriptures ;  and  by  the  labor  of 
monks  it  multiplied  copies  of   what   thus  was  pre- 
served, and  transmitted  them  to  us.     It  built  cathe- 
drals, and  abbey-churches,  vast  poems  in  stone,  which 
inspire   the    fond    admiration    of    Christendom    by 
their  melodious  and  consecrated  beauty.     It  estab- 
lished universities,  for  the  teaching  of  its  doctrines, 
but  with  an  inevitably  wider  effect  on  the  culture  of 
mankind.    It  proclaimed  the  "  truce  of  God,"  to  miti- 
gate and  restrain,  where  it  might  not  prohibit,  the 
savage  and  sanguinary  combats  of  men.    It  loosed  the 
bonds  of  human  slavery  from  multitudes  of  victims, 
and  honorably  refused   to  recognize  distinctions  of 
bond  or  free  among  its  officers.    It  made  the  stoutest 
baron  tremble,  in  the  ecstasy  of  his  passion,  before  the 
invisible  energy  of  the  curse  with  which  it  could  blast 
his  cruelty  or  his  lust.    Sometimes,  indeed,  upon  kings 
themselves,  when  their  tyranny  was  most  fierce,  it  laid 


1 6  Oration  at  New   York. 

a  hand  far  heavier  than  theirs,  and  held  them  in  en- 
forced and  reluctant  submission. 

Surely  it  was  something  to  have  peoples  thus  taught 
that  there  was  an  authority  higher  than  of  princes,  a 
right  more  imperative,  a  tribunal  more  august.  And 
I  cannot  but  think  it  beyond  dispute  that  a  power 
was  exerted  from  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  in  different 
directions,  between  the  fifth  and  the  fourteenth  cent- 
uries, to  restrain  some  of  the  most  malign  evils,  and 
encourage  some  of  the  germs  of  good,  in  that  fateful 
and  perilous  time.  It  taught  the  nations,  however 
obscurely,  their  Christian  relationship  to  each  other, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  International  Law  ;  while  the 
out-ranging  missions  of  Europe,  for  the  conquest  of 
the  heathenism  which  still  girt  it  about,  took  steadi- 
ness, ardor,  and  a  regulating  order,  from  this  vast 
Church  authority,  and  smote  with  more  effective  im- 
pact upon  the  mighty  ring  of  darkness. 

The  whole  system  which  thus  took  the  place  in 
Europe  of  the  earlier,  simpler  Christian  economy, 
and  whose  existence  was  for  many  generations  the 
sovereign  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Continent,  appears 
now  an  anachronism,  as  truly  as  tournaments,  feudal 
keeps,  or  iron  helmets.  The  terrible  crozier,  before 
which  baton  and  lance  went  down  in  fear,  has  no  more 
place  for  such  use  in  our  times  than  has  scale-armor, 
or  the  Genoese  cross-bow.  But  then  it  had  a  great 
purpose  to  serve  ;  and  one  who  discerns  the  salutary 
ends    which    the    Church    as    imperially    organized 


Roman  Doctrine  and   Worship.  17 

accomplished,  may  admire  anew  the  patience  and  the 
wisdom  whose  silent  grasp  no  power  eludes,  and 
which  even  man's  wrath  at  last  must  praise. 

But  now  it  is  obvious  that  with  this  system  of  or- 
ganization had  grown  up  one  of  doctrine  and  of  wor- 
ship, and  had  been  developed  spiritual  tendencies, 
whose  effects  were  widely  and  dangerously  evil ; 
against  which  Christians  had  at  length  absolutely  to 
rebel,  to  maintain  or  regain  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
And  here  it  was  that  the  Scriptures  met  their  de- 
termined antagonist. 

The  solemn  setting  apart  of  men  to  offices  of 
permanent  prerogative  and  control,  in  a  vast,  ancient, 
and  dominating  Hierarchy,  almost  inevitably  induced 
the  assumption  that  the  Church  was  in  them,  as  Louis 
of  France  declared  himself  "the  State,"  and  that  men 
must  abide  in  communion  with  them  on  peril  of  los- 
ing eternal  life.  In  their  view,  it  had  commission, 
t'his  priestly  Church,  with  affirmative  voice  to  declare 
and  unfold,  even  to  supplement,  what  was  taught  in 
the  Scriptures.  It  had  power,  as  well,  to  communi- 
cate grace,  transmitted  through  it  by  its  Divine  Head, 
on  effectual  sacraments  :  giving  in  baptism  the  germi- 
nant  principle  of  spiritual  life ;  restoring  it  in  penance ; 
nourishing  and  renewing  it  in  other  sacraments,  most 
of  all  in  the  Eucharist.  It  was  in  orderly  develop- 
ment of  this  system  that  the  very  body  and  blood  of 
the  Lord  were  at  last  affirmed  to  be  in  the  wafer* — ' 


*  At  the  Lateran  Council,  A.D.  121 5. 


1 8  Oration  at  New   York. 

the  Infinite  in  the  finite,  the  personal  presence  and 
gloiy  of  the  Redeemer  in  material  particles ;  and  that 
thenceforth  the  chief  vehicle  of  grace  to  the  soul 
which  received  it  was  held  to  be  not  the  word  of  the 
Master,  but  this  figure  of  bread,  over  which  thauma- 
turgic  words  had  been  spoken,  and  behind  whose 
accidents  was  the  hidden  splendor  and  life  of  God's 
Son. 

With  this  came  naturally  a  form  of  worship  pic- 
torial and  spectacular,  rather  than  instructive  ;  an  hom- 
age paid  to  the  hierarchies  above  ;  the  increasing 
adoration  of  the  "Mother  of  God";  and  all  the 
forms  of  doctrine  and  practice  still  presented  by  the 
modern  representative  of  the  middle-age  Christen- 
dom. The  entire  system,  in  its  gradual  expansion  to 
its  ultimate  surprising  symmetry  and  vigor,  rises  be- 
fore one  in  the  pages  of  history  as  plainly  as  the 
chain  of  the  Cordilleras  on  a  recent  ample  topograph- 
ical map.  It  corresponded  with  the  vast  politico- 
religious  organization  in  which  it  was  formulated.  It 
seemed  to  supply  the  reason  for  that ;  and  it  wrought, 
with  and  through  it,  with  an  energy  seemingly  inex- 
haustible. 

Of  course,  by  its  nature,  the  entire  system  was 
profoundly  adverse  to  the  popular  reading  of  the 
Scriptures.  It  was  surely  conscious  of  many  things, 
— in  the  worship  of  Saints,  or  of  the  Virgin,  in  the 
efficacy  of  sacraments,  the  traditional  functions  of 
prelates  or  the  Pontiff — for  which  no  waiTant  could 


Study  of  the  Scripttcres  Opposed.  19 

be  found  in  the  Word,  if  that  did  not  distinctly  con- 
tradict them,  and  foretell  their  mischiefs.  To  allow 
men  to  search  the  Scriptures  for  themselves  was 
practically  to  suspend  the  function  of  the  Hierarchy, 
as  the  authorized  expositor  of  the  Divine  teaching. 
All  divisions  of  opinion  might  then  be  apprehended. 
A  man  might  even  come  to  feel  that  he  had  no  fur- 
ther need  of  a  priest,  as  the  mediator  between  Christ 
and  his  soul,  but  could  go  himself,  in  sorrow  for  sin 
or  in  petition  for  favor,  to  Him  whose  mind  had 
touched  his  in  the  Gospel.  It  could  not,  indeed, 
have  seemed  inconceivable  that  an  entire  scheme  of 
doctrine,  based  on  the  idea  that  faith  in  the  Lord  is 
that  which  justifies,  and  that  such  faith  has  in  it  the 
power  of  the  life  everlasting,  might  thus  finally  ap- 
pear in  the  world.  And  the  whole  pontifical  organi- 
zation would  be  in  peril  if  such  an  exposition  were 
given  to  the  argument  of  the  Pauline  epistles. 

It  must  be  observed,  too,  that  what  we  hold — 
justly,  we  think — the  evil  effects  of  a  long  withhold- 
ing of  the  Scriptures  from  the  people,  came  to  fur- 
nish fresh  argument  for  it.  The  four-fold  significance 
recognized  in  those  Scriptures  could  only  be  discerned 
by  devout  and  competent  spirits.  If  then  it  had 
come  to  pass,  as  plainly  as  it  had,  that  neither  intel- 
lectual nor  spiritual  insight  was  commonly  to  be 
found  in  religious  assemblies — that  the  people  who 
bowed  in  adoration  to  images,  less  graceful  than  the' 
Greek  and  less  ausfust  than  the  Roman,  who  trusted 


20  Oration  at  New    York. 

in  the  wood  of  the  Cross,  who  rang  bells  in  the  night 
to  frighten  the  demons  from  the  air,  and  who  only 
felt  the  sanctity  of  an  oath  as  it  had  been  taken  on 
ancient  relics  and  unauthenticated  bones,  that  these 
could  scarcely  be  expected  to  feel  the  sublime  pathos 
of  the  gospels,  or  to  follow  the  excursions  of  Paul's 
inspired  and  rapid  reason — all  the  more  was  it  certain 
to  those  in  authority  that  it  would  be  casting  pearls 
before  swine,  intoxicating  weak  and  unprepared  souls 
with  precious  cordials,  to  freely  open  the  Scriptures 
to  all.  Undoubtedly  often,  to  devout  minds,  it 
seemed  a  token  of  reverence  for  these  to  keep  them 
apart  from  ignoble  hands  ;  while  it  seemed  equally  a 
tenderness  to  those  who  might  be  seduced,  through 
misconceiving  the  Word,  into  dangerous  error. 

So  it  came  to  pass,  in  no  flash  of  petulant  arro- 
gance, by  no  inexplicable  frenzy  of  councils,  but  by 
a  logical  moral  progress,  certain  and  governing,  that 
the  early  plan  of  putting  the  writings  in  which 
Christianity  was  declared  to  the  world  into  the  hand 
of  every  reader,  for  his  guidance  to  the  Master,  or 
for  his  sweeter  wisdom  and  grace,  was  suspended  and 
antagonized  by  the  later  plan  of  keeping  all  teaching 
in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood,  and  reserving  to  a 
language  understood  by  only  the  educated  class  the 
sacred  books.  Reverence  for  these  books  had  pre- 
served them  in  the  monasteries  with  effectual  care. 
It  had  caused  them  to  be  often  transcribed  by  the 
monks,  to  be  splendidly  ornamented,  superbly  bound, 


Prohibition  of  the  Scriptures.  21 

embossed  and  enriched  with  gold  and  gems,  till  a  copy 
was  almost  worth  in  commerce  the  price  of  a  castle."^" 
But  it  had  hidden  them  from  the  touch  of  the  laity 
with  as  jealous  a  care  ;  and  the  tendency  to  that  was 
as  unreturning  as  the  steady  slip  of  the  stream  to  the 
sea.  A  distinct  prohibition  of  the  Scriptures  to  the 
people  was  promulgated  at  Toulouse,  a.d.  i2  29.t  It 
had  been  a  rule  of  the  Greek  Church  before.  But  par- 
ticular decrees  only  uttered  a  rule  which  lay  back  of 
all,  and  w^as  inherent  in  the  system  of  thought  from 
which  they  sprang.  As  that  system  became  per- 
fected, its  tone  grew  sharper  and  more  imperious.  It 
watched  its  domains  with  a  vigilance  unsleeping. 
And  he  who  thereafter  would  place  the  Scriptures,  in 
a  language    familiar,  before   the  people,  must  cross 


*  The  Abbot  Angilbert  gave  to  the  Abbey  of  St.  Riquier,  in  A.D.  814, 
a  copy  of  the  Gospels,  "  in  letters  of  gold,  with  silver  plates,  marvellously 
adorned  with  gold  and  precious  stones."  Louis  Debonair  gave  to  a 
monastery  at  Soissons  a  copy  of  the  Gospels  "  written  in  letters  of  gold, 
and  bound  in  plates  of  the  same  metal,  of  the  utmost  purity."  In  A.D. 
1022  the  Emperor  presented  to  the  monastery  of  Monte  Casino  a  copy 
of  the  Gospels  "  covered  on  one  side  with  most  pure  gold,  and  most 
precious  gems,  written  in  uncial  characters,  and  illuminated  with  gold." 
Many  other  like  instances  of  costly  copies  of  the  Scriptures,  or  of  parts 
of  them,  are  noted  in  monastic  ^tzoxC^s.—See  Maitland's  "Dark  Ages," 
pp.  205-220. 

\  "  We  also  forbid  the  laity  to  possess  any  of  the  books  of  the  Old  or 
New  Testament,  unless,  perhaps,  the  Psalter  or  Breviary  for  the  Divine 
Offices,  or  the  Hours  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  some,  out  of  devotion,  may 
wish  to  have  ;  but  that  any  should  have  these  books  translated  into  the 
vulgar  tongue  we  strictly  forbid  [arctissime  inhibemus]." 


22  Oration  at  Neiu    York. 

swords  with  the  power  which  had  kings  for  its  vas- 
sals, their  armies  for  its  troops,  and  upon  the  plates 
of  whose  alleged  supernal  armor  the  fiercest  chief- 
tains had  shivered  their  blades. 

But  now  it  is  also  to  be  observed  that  against  this 
tendency  had  been  at  least  occasional  resistance,  by 
many  of  the  best  among  the  people,  and  of  the 
priesthood  ;  and  that  this  had  been  as  manifest  as  any- 
where in  that  earlier  England,  which,  after  a  frightful 
paralysis  of  its  powers,  had  come,  at  just  the  time  of 
Wycliffe,  to  its  incipient  resurrection.  We  have  to 
trace  this  history,  also,  to  get  his  work,  in  its  impulse, 
its  meaning,  and  its  fruitful  effect,  fully  before  us. 

The  movements  toward  a  more  spiritual  faith  which 
at  different  times  had  appeared  on  the  Continent — 
represented  in  part  by  the  Paulicians,  by  Claude  of 
Turin,  by  Peter  de  Bruys,  by  Arnold  of  Brescia,  or, 
more  largely,  by  Waldo  and  his  followers — these  seem 
to  have  made  slight  impression  on  the  peoples  in 
England.  Their  relations  with  the  Continent  were 
not  close ;  and  thought  passed  slowly,  in  those  slug- 
gish times,  from  one  state  to  another.  But  among 
the  German  peoples  themselves,  who  had  conquered 
Britain,  there  had  been  developed  at  different  times  a 
practical  tendency  toward  freedom  in  religion,  and 
especially  toward  a  more  personal  and  general  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Scriptures. 

Of  course  their  history,  after  settling  in  England, 
had  been  very  largely  one  of  strife.     It  startles  us  to 


The  Saxo7t  Spirit.  23 

remember  that  more  than  one  year  out  of  two,  in 
the  whole  six  centuries  of  their  growing  domination, 
had  been  occupied  in  struggle :  against  the  preceding 
inhabitants  of  the  country,  among  themselves,  or 
against  the  roving  tribes  which  had  followed ;  while 
the  breaking  in  of  the  still  pagan  Danes,  upon  the 
state  which  was  painfully  striving  tow^ard  Christian 
order,  immensely  retarded  its  moral  progress.  Yet 
the  active  and  strenuous  spirit  of  the  Saxons,  after 
they  had  accepted  the  Christianity  which  Gregory 
sent,  by  the  Abbot  Augustine  and  his  forty  monks, 
had  never  ceased  to  work  toward  better  and  larger 
knowledge,  and  a  more  secure  freedom.  The  name 
"  Saxon  "  may  not  have  come,  as  some  have  derived 
it,  from  the  short  sword-axe,  or  "  Seax,"  which  they 
carried ;  ^''  but  the  weapon  certainly  well  represented 
their  self-asserting  and  resolute  temper,  to  which  war 
was  familiar,  and  \vhich  sought  utility  as  the  prime 
good  in  instruments.  There  was  nothing  very  fine  or 
ethereal  about  them.  They  were  not  distinguished 
for  brightness  of  fancy,  or  moral  delicacy,  or  for  un- 
usual spiritual  insight.  But  they  had  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal right,  which  was  vital  and  strong,  \vith  a  certain 
robust  practical  intelligence ;  while  they  readily  re- 
ceived whatever  forms  of  foreign  culture  they  could 
assimilate. 


*  Thierry  seems  to  accept  this  :  "  Saxons,  or  men  with  the  long  knives  ;  " 
■"  Sax,  saex,  seax,  ssex,  knife  or  sword.  Handsax,  poniard.  (Gloss,  of 
Wachter)." — Nor.  Cotiq.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  9. 


24  Oration  at  New   York. 

They  had  gained  written  codes,  as  one  effect  of 
their  new  religion.  They  had  gained  a  force  from 
the  world  at  large,  to  expand  and  lift  the  insular 
spirit.  Archbishop  Theodore,  an  Asiatic  Greek  from 
Tarsus,  in  the  seventh  century  brought  to  Canterbury 
an  extraordinary  library,  containing  Greek  authors  as 
well  as  Latin.  He  established  important  schools  in 
the  kingdom,  and  himself  taught  arithmetic,  astron- 
omy, medicine,  and  divinity.  The  African  Abbot, 
Adrian,  who  accompanied  him,  was  of  a  like  spirit ; 
and  in  less  than  a  century  from  the  landing  of  the 
monks,  Caedmon  of  Whitby  was  reciting  to  the 
Abbess  Hilda  and  her  scholars  the  first  Ens^lish  sons: 
— of  Creation,  of  Judgment,  and  of  what  lies  be- 
tween ;  Aldhelm,  of  Malmesbury,  was  inventing  the 
organ,  and  writing  the  earliest  Latin  verse  ;  while  the 
eloquence  and  the  sanctity  of  Cuthbert  seemed  to 
open  heaven  to  the  eyes  of  those  to  whom  he  preached. 
In  the  following  century  Off  a,  the  king,  not  only 
struck  coins  and  medals,  and  built  an  abbey  and  a 
palace,  but  he  framed  laws  to  promote  Christian 
morals,  drew  closer  the  relations  of  England  to  the 
Continent,  and  corresponded  with  Charlemagne,  on 
matters  of  commerce  and  education. 

Alfred,  of  the  ninth  century,  by  consent  of  all 
one  of  the  leading  figures  in  history — not  great  in 
opportunity,  but  great  in  mental  and  moral  force — is 
the  typical  Saxon.  He  had  been  upon  the  Continent, 
and  had  there  had  experience  of  a  higher  civilization 


Alfred'' s  Promotion  of  Education.  25 

than  existed  in  England.     He  sought  to  assemble 
learned  men  at  his  court,  as  Grimbald  from  St.  Omer's, 
and  Asser  from  St.  David's.     He  learned  Latin  him- 
self, in  the  intervals  of  a  life  crowded  with  care  and 
thick  with  battles,  that  he  might  open  its  treasures  to 
others.     He  translated  from  it  Orosius'  History,  with 
additions  of  his  own ;  Gregory's  treatise  on  the   duty 
of  Pastors ;  Boethius,  on  the  Consolation  of  Philoso- 
phy ;  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Bede,  and  parts  of 
the  writings  of  St.  Augustine.   He  personally  translated 
parts  of  the  Scripture,  and  was  engaged  at  his  death 
on  a  Saxon  Psalter.     Historians  find  a  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  range  of  his  thought  in  the  fact  that 
he  sent  ambassadors  from   England  to  the  ancient 
Christian  churches  in  India.     A  clearer  illustration 
appears  in  the  fact  that  he  founded  schools  at  Win- 
chester and    Oxford— the  latter   of   which    has   not 
unreasonably  been  considered  the  germ  of  the  later 
University  ;  that  he  sought  a  higher  education  for  girls, 
as  well  as  for  boys ;  and  that  he  expressed  the  kingly 
wish  that  all  the  free-born  English  youth  should  some 
time   read   with    correctness   and   ease   the    English 
Scriptures.     Athelstane,  his  grandson,  was  hardly  be- 
hind him  in  his  desire  to  further  learning  and  promote 
moral  welfare  ;  and  he  also  pressed  the  translation  of 
the  Scriptures  into  the  common  English  speech.     The 
"Durham    Book,"    of    Latin    gospels,    with    Saxon 
glosses    interlined,    the    most   beautiful    example   of 
Saxon  calligraphy,  is  perhaps  of  his  time. 


26  Oratio7i  at  New   York. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  tides  of  battle  ever  rising 
and  slowly  receding,  a  true  progress  had  been  real- 
ized in  England,  in  the  direction  of  those  attainments 
which  have  given  to  the  nation  its  subsequent  fame. 
Men  for  the  time  distinguished  by  their  accomplish- 
ments began  to  appear.  The  Abbot  Benedict 
brought  costly  books,  and  works  of  art,  on  his  return 
from  each  of  his  journeys  to  Rome.*  The  Venera- 
ble Bedc,  in  the  eighth  century,  found  learning,  teach- 
ing, and  writing,  as  he  said,  a  constant  delight. f  He 
learned  Greek,  as  well  as  Latin,  with  something  of  He- 
brew, and  quoted  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as  well  as  Seneca, 
Cicero,  and  Virgil.  He  left  forty-five  books  to  attest 
his  industry,  on  science,  philosophy,  as  well  as  the- 
ology ;  and  is  said  to  have  first  introduced  the  use  of 
the  Christian  era  in  historical  writing.  He  drew  to 
himself  six  hundred  scholars  ;  and  he  died,  as  we 
know,  while  engaged  in  translating  the  Gospel  of 
John  into  the  stubborn  Saxon  tongue.     Burke  calls 


*  "  He  brought  treasures  back  with  him,  chiefly  books  in  countless 
quantities,  and  of  every  kind.  He  was  a  passionate  collector,  as  has  been 
seen,  from  his  youth.  He  desired  each  of  his  monasteries  to  possess  a 
great  library,  which  he  considered  indispensable  to  the  instruction,  dis- 
cipline, and  good  organization  of  the  community." — Montalembert, 
"Monks  of  the  West,"  Vol.  IV.,  p.  443. 

f  "  Cunctum  vitae  tempus  in  ejusdem  monasterii  habitatione  peragens, 
omnem  mcditandis  Scripturis  operam  dedi ;  atque  inter  obscrvantiam 
disciplinae  regularis  et  quotidianam  cantandi  in  ecclesia  curam,  semper 
aut  discere,  aut  docere,  aut  scribere  dulce  habui." — See  Giles"  "Life  of 
Ven.  Bedc,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  lii. 


Literary  Emijience  of  Saxon   Clergy.  27 

him  "the  Father  of  the  English  learning";  and, 
though  denying  him  genius,  credits  him  with  "  an  in- 
credible industry,  and  a  generous  thirst  of  knowl- 
edge."* 

Alcuin,  who  came  later,  the  friend  and  instructor 
of  Charlemagne,  had  been  educated  at  York,  where 
the  library  collected  by  Archbishop  Egbert  was  al- 
ready so  rich  that  he  remembered  it  with  delight  and 
regret  from  his  more  brilliant  Southern  home,  and 
longed  that  "  some  of  its  fruits  might  be  placed  in 
the  Paradise  of  Tours."  Dunstan,  of  the  tenth  cent- 
ury, though  of  a  fiery  arrogance  of  temper,  su- 
premely devoted  to  the  Papacy,  was  also  an  assiduous 
student,  a  designer  and  painter,  a  skilful  musician, 
with  taste  in  the  arrangement  of  jewels  and  the  illus- 
tration of  books,  a  judge  even  of  embroidery,  and 
fond  of  rich  architecture.  The  literary  eminence  of 
the  Saxon  clergy  was  then  acknowledged  by  other 
nations.  The  schools,  at  York,  and  at  J  arrow  on 
the  Tyne,  were  celebrated ;  and  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle,  of  the  time  of  Alfred,  remains,  with  the 
exception  of  Ulphilas'  translation,  the  most  venera- 
ble monument  of  Teutonic  prose. 

The  general  moral  progress  of  the  nation,  though 

*"Abridg.  Eng.  Hist."  Works,  Vol.  V.,  p.  532. 

Sharon  Turner  says  of  Bede,  somewhat  extravagantly,  that  he  "col- 
lected into  one  focus  all  that  was  known  to  the  ancient  world,  except- 
rng  the  Greek  mathematicians,  and  some  of  their  literature  and  phi- 
losophy, which  he  had  not  much  studied." — "Hist.  Ang.  Sax.,"  Vol.  III., 
p.  356. 


28  Oratio7i  at  New   York. 

not  rapid  or  signal,  appeared  thus  secure.  Indus- 
tries were  multiplied  ;  gardens  and  orchards  began  to 
replace  the  forests,  swamps,  and  pasture-lands  ;  arti- 
cles of  taste  came  to  be  frequent,  musical  instru- 
ments, cups  of  twisted  glass,  or  of  gold  or  silver,  cu- 
riously wrought,  which  were  often  exported.  The 
walls  of  churches  were  hung  not  unfrequently  with 
pictures  and  tapestries,  and  silver  candelabra  were  on 
the  altars.  The  even-song  of  the  monks  at  Ely 
floats  to  us  over  the  centuries,  and  the  Danish 
Canute's  enjoyment  of  it  has  been  commemorated  in 
lovely  lines  by  a  great  English  poet.'^  Woman  had 
relatively  a  high  position  in  the  Saxon  communities, f 


♦  "  A  pleasant  music  floats  along  the  Mere, 
From  monks  in  Ely  chanting  service  high, 
While-as  Cantite,  the  King,  is  rowing  by  : 

The  Royal  Minstrel,  ere  the  choir  is  still. 

While  his  free  barge  skims  the  smooth  flood  along. 

Gives  to  that  rapture  an  accordant  Rhyme." 

Wordsworth,  "  Eccl.  Sonnet,"  XXX. 

The  remaining  fragment  of  this  "  Rhyme  "  is  said  by  Turner  to  be  the 
oldest  specimen  left  of  a  genuine  ballad  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  language. — 
"Hist.  Ang.  Sax.,"  Vol.  III.,  p.  249. 

t  "  They  were  allowed  to  possess,  to  inherit,  and  to  transmit  landed 
property  ;  they  shared  in  the  social  festivities  ;  they  were  present  at  the 
Witenagemot  and  the  Shire-gemot ;  they  were  permitted  to  sue  and  be 
sued  in  the  courts  of  justice  ;  their  persons,  their  safety,  their  liberty,  and 
their  property  were  protected  by  express  laws." — Sharon  Turner,  "Hist. 
Ang.  Sax.,"  Vol.  III.,  p.  59. 

They  were  famous  in  Europe  for  their  skill  in  gold  embroidery.  The 
mother  of  Alfred  was  his  earliest  and  best  teacher.  His  daughter  in- 
herited his  genius  and  spirit,  and  was  the  'wisest  woman  in  England.' 
It  might  have  been  said  of  many  a  Saxon  woman,  in  reference  to  the 


Promise  of  the  Early  England.  29 

and  freedom  was  general.  Kingship  had  been  born 
of  battle ;  but  the  kings  were  little  more  than  elective 
war  chiefs,  and  the  national  council  could  depose 
them.  Assemblies  of  freemen  consulted  and  decided 
on  public  questions.  County  courts,  which  we  have 
inherited,  took  cognizance  of  all  cases,  whether  tem- 
poral or  spiritual.  Slavery  was  limited  in  extent,  and 
the  body  of  the  people  were  proprietors  or  free  la- 
borers. Those  of  lower  ranks  could  rise  to  the 
higher,  like  the  great  Earl  Godwin.  Towns  and  par- 
ishes were  more  numerous  than  on  the  Continent. 
Allodial  properties  were  widely  distributed  ;  and  the 
Witanagemote,  or  Assembly  of  Wise  Men,  including 
king,  clergy,  nobles,  and  gentry,  held  the  government 
of  the  kingdom  in  its  strong  and  liberal  hand. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  wide  illiteracy,  and  of  unre- 
fined manners,  the  Saxon  people,  at  the  time  when 
Edward  the  Confessor  completed  his  work  of  fifteen 
years  in  building  Westminster  Abbey,  were  compara- 
tively self-governed,  energetic,  and  prosperous.  They 
had  liberty  of  access,  laymen  as  well  as  priests,  to 
copies  of  the  Scriptures,  where  these  existed.  The 
Gospel  and  the  Epistle  were  read  in  English  in  the 
churches,  and  the  sermon  was  so  preached.*  Other 
parts   of  the   Scriptures  were  in  their  own  tongue. 


sturdy  stock  from  which  she  sprang,  as  it  was  said  of  Edith,  daughter 
of  Godwin,  who  was  singularly  lovely  in  person  and  character,  and  ot 
many  accomplishments,  "  Sicut  spina  rosam,  genuit  Godwinus  Editham." 
*  Lingard,  "  Hist,  of  Eng.,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  307. 


30  Oratio7i  at  New   York. 

JSlfric,  in  the  tenth  centuty,  had  given  an  epitome  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  had  translated  por- 
tions of  them,  besides  quoting  in  his  homilies  numer- 
ous texts.  The  "  Rushworth  Gloss,"  like  the  Dur- 
ham, gave  the  Latin  of  the  gospels,  with  a  Saxon 
translation  ;  and  still  another  translation  of  the  same 
sacred  records  is  known  to  have  preceded  the  Con- 
quest. It  seems  nearly  certain  that  if  the  progress 
thus  commenced  had  continued  unhindered,  long  be- 
fore the  day  of  Wyclifife,  the  Bible,  in  the  speech  of 
the  people,  would  have  been  the  possession  and  rich 
inheritance  of  our  rough,  but  robust,  aspiring,  and 
hopeful  English  ancestors. 

At  this  point,  however,  breaks  in  upon  their  history 
a  fracturing  force,  which  certainly  long  retarded  this 
progress,  and  which  seemed  for  a  time  wholly  to  for- 
bid the  final  attainment.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the 
Norman  Conquest. 

The  difference  between  the  Saxon  and  the  Nor- 
man was  not  one  of  blood,  since  both  represented 
the  Teutonic  stock  ;  but  it  was  fuller  of  meaning  and 
of  menace  for  that  very  reason,  because  the  Scandi- 
navian stuff  had  taken  in  the  Normans  a  peculiar  de- 
velopment, which  made  them  at  once  despise  and 
hate  their  ancient  kinsman.  Their  long  career  as 
rovers  of  the  seas  had  perfected  in  them  the  native 
fierceness  from  which  the  Saxons  had  been  emerging 
into  a  more  domestic  habit.  Settling  in  France,  in 
the  ninth  century,  and  wresting  lands  and  cities  from 


.  The  Norman  Character.  31 

its  king,  these  restless  pirates — whom  Charlemagne, 
even  at  the  height  of  his  power,  had  seen  and  feared 
— entered  into  alliance  with  the  Southern  civilization, 
and  became  its  chiefest  Northern  champions.  Drop- 
ping their  own  religion  and  language,  they  adopted 
the  religion,  the  language,  and  the  manners,  which 
preceded  them  in  France.  Its  feudal  system,  in  the 
utmost  completeness,  they  joyfully  accepted.  Its 
rites  of  chivalry,  which  the  Saxons  had  tardily  and 
partially  adopted,  were  practised  by  them  with  eager 
devotion,  as  well  as  with  prodigal  splendor  and  pomp. 
They  became  the  exulting,  if  not  always  the  patient, 
adherents  of  the  Papacy,  whose  far-ascending  orders 
of  rank  surpassed  their  elaborate  feudal  distinctions, 
whose  majestic  ceremonial  was  more  sumptuous  and 
brilliant  than  that  of  their  tournaments.  And  a  cent- 
ury and  a  half  after  their  first  settlement  in  France, 
there  was  no  province,  from  the  Channel  to  the  Gulf, 
more  alive  than  was  theirs  with  the  spirit  and  forms 
of  the  peoples  speaking  the  Romance  tongues.  The 
martial  fire  burned  as  ever  in  their  veins  ;  but  their 
constitution  was  feudal,  their  language  French,  the 
whole  tone  of  their  society  had  been  caught  from  the 
South. 

Descendants  of  renowned  and  irresistible  conque- 
rors, "  the  silver  streak  "  interposed  but  slight  barrier 
between  this  people  and  the  fertile  farms  and  thriving 
towns  every  rumor  of  which  reexcited  their  greed. 
Their  influence    had   been  largely  augmented  in  En- 


32  Oratioji  at  New    York. 

gland  during  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Confessor.  It 
came  to  its  terrific  consummation  when  on  Christmas- 
day,  A.D.  1066,  a  few  weeks  after  the  victory  of 
Hastings,  WiUiam  of  Normandy  was  crowned  King 
of  England,  in  that  Westminster  Abbey  whose  vast 
extent,  massive  pillars,  and  cruciform  structure  showed 
already  the  Norman  impress.  His  conquest  was  not 
fully  completed  till  some  years  after ;  but  from  that 
time  the  old  order  of  things  was  practically  ended, 
and  a  new  and  dreadful  era  began. 

The  destruction  of  properties  in  the  kingdom  was 
enormous.  The  destruction  of  life,  happiness,  hope, 
not  only  in  battle,  but  in  the  fierce  outrage  and  rapine 
which  broke  as  a  fiery  flood  upon  the  land,  is  some- 
thing which  cannot  be  pictured  in  speech.  It  is  not 
wonderful  that  men  fancied  long  afterward  that 
fresh  traces  of  blood  appeared  supernaturally  on  the 
battle-ground  near  Hastings,  as  if  to  show  the  writh- 
ing of  the  land  in  its  immense  anguish.  In  the 
time  of  Stephen,  the  Chronicle  said,  one  might 
travel  a  day  and  not  find  one  man  living  in  a 
town,  nor  any  land  under  cultivation.  "  Men  said 
openly  that  Christ  and  his  Saints  were  asleep."  ■''■   The 


*  See  Hallam,  "Mid,  Ages,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  316. 

"Between  York  and  Durham  every  town  stood  uninhabited;  their 

streets  became  lurking-places  for  robbers  and  wild  beasts Men, 

women,  and  children  died  of  hunger;  they  laid  them  down  and  died  in 

the  roads  and  in  the  fields,  and  there  was  no  man  to  bury  them 

Nay,  there  were  those  who  did   not   shrink  from  keeping  themselves 


Stibjection  of  the  English  Church.  2)Z 

feudal  system,  in  all  its  rigor,  took  the  place  of 
the  simpler  Saxon  institutions ;  and  it  was  reckoned, 
in  the  third  generation  after  the  Conquest,  that  more 
than  eleven  hundred  castles  had  already  been  erected. 
The  Saxon  clergy,  endeared  to  the  people  by  their 
general  steadfastness  for  the  popular  cause,  were 
driven  with  violence  from  their  places,  to  be  succeeded 
by  Norman  monks.  Wulfstan,  of  Worcester,  was, 
after  a  little,  the  only  Bishop  of  English  blood  left  in 
his  place.  The  supremacy  of  the  Pontiff,  who  had 
sent  to  William  his  consecrated  standard,  and  who  had 
followed  his  invasion  with  the  first  Papal  legates  in 
the  island,  appeared  finally  exalted  above  all  local 
Episcopal  rights ;  and  the  freedom  of  the  Church 
seemed  to  have  fallen,  with  that  of  the  State,  in  final 
ruin.  Even  venerated  Saxon  saints  were  displaced 
from  the  calendar,  as  if  Heaven  itself  were  a  wholly 
Norman  institution. 

The  language  of  the  people  was  banished  from  the 
Court,  the  councils,  the  public  records,  and  the  North- 
ern dialect  of   France   took    its   place.     The    native 


alive  on  the  flesh  of  their  own  kind." — Freeman,  Hist.  Nor.  Conq.,  Vol. 
IV.,  p.  293. 

"  England  was  now  a  scene  of  general  desolation,  a  prey  to  the  ravages 
both  of  natives  and  foreigners.  Fire,  robbery,  and  daily  slaughter,  did 
their  worst  on  the  wretched  people,  who  were  forever  attacked,  trampled 

down,  and  crushed Ignorant  upstarts,  driven  almost  mad  by  their 

sudden  elevation,  wondered  how  they  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of  power, 
and  thought  that  they  might  do  whatever  they  liked." — Ordertc  Vital. 
Ecd.  Hist.,  B.  IV.,  chs.  iv.,  viii. 


34  Oration  at  New   York. 

English  were  despised  without  measure,  and  despoiled 
without  mercy.  Many  fled  across  the  sea,  into  the 
ser\'ice  of  foreign  kings,  or  of  the  Greek  Emperor. 
Becket  —  made  Chancellor,  and  Archbishop,  under 
Henry  Second — was  the  first  Englishman  to  rise  to 
any  distinguished  office  ;""  and  during  the  intervening 
century  it  seemed  as  if  the  earlier  nation  had  been 
literally  crushed,  by  the  fierce  onset  of  overwhelming 
power,  into  a  helpless  and  hopeless  subjection,  from 
which  there  could  be  no  release. 

It  could  not  but  be  long,  under  circumstances  like 
these,  before  the  tendencies,  active  before,  had  a 
chance  to  reappear,  seeking  again  a  freer  faith,  and 
wider  acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures.  But  these 
tendencies,  like  those  to  freedom  in  the  State,  were 
radical  and  perennial ;  and  the  stubborn  struggle 
through  which  they  at  last  rose  to  supremacy  makes 
the  pages  which  record  it  of  interest  to  the  world. 

In  spite  of  this  tremendous  overthrow,  which  had 
fallen  like  a  whirlwind  full  of  thunder  and  flame  on 
the  English  people,  and  in  spite  of  the  organized  mil- 
itary oppression  under  which  they  long  suffered,  many 
things  remained,  and  after  a  time  reasserted  their 
right.  The  old  language  remained ;  and  gradually, 
though  slowly,  it  crowded  back  the  Norman  dialect, 


*  It  is  extremely  doubtful  if  Becket  was  of  Saxon  descent ;  (see  Mil- 
man,  Lat.  Christ.,  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  309-312)  ;  but  that  he  was  regarded  by 
the  English  as  their  representative,  in  a  sense  in  wliich  none  of  his  pre- 
decessors had  been,  is  beyond  question. 


Benefits  of  the  Conquest.  35 

while  from  that  it  gained  important  additions.  The 
old  laws  continued,  among  the  people,  and  the  early 
local  institutions.  These  gradually  attacked  the 
fabricated  strength  of  the  feudal  establishment ; 
and  every  prince  who  would  win  popularity  found  his 
readiest  resource  in  ratifying  the  laws  of  Edward  the 
Confessor.  The  old  life  of  the  people  remained, 
unbroken  by  the  desolating  strokes  it  had  suffered, 
and  with  an  unconquerable  tenacity  of  purpose  wait- 
ing its  time  to  conquer  its  conquerors. 

Meantime,  it  grew  evident  that  many  things  had 
come  with  the  Conquest,  to  expand,  enrich,  and  lib- 
eralize this  life,  and  to  make  the  nation  ultimately  no- 
bler, in  knowledge  and  in  hope.  The  monastic  school 
of  the  Bee,  in  Normandy,  was  famous  throughout 
Europe,  and  the  great  archbishops,  Lanfranc*  and 
Anselm,  who  came  thence  to  Canterbury,  established 
schools,  quickened  thought,  and  fostered  learning. 
A  more  uniform  church-service  was  established  in  the 
kingdom,  making  worship  more  attractive  with  its 
statelier  harmonies. f     Our  very  word  "  Bible,"  as  de- 


*  "  To  understand  the  admirable  genius  and  erudition  of  Lanfranc,  one 
ought  to  be  an  Herodian  in  grammar,  an  Aristotle  in  dialectics,  a  Tully 
in  rhetoric,  an  Augustine  and  a  Jerome,  and  other  expositors  of  law  and 
grace,  in  the  sacred  Scriptures.     Athens  itself,  in  its  most  flourishing 

state would  have  honoured  Lanfranc  in  every  branch  of  eloquence 

and  discipline,  and  would  have  desired  to  receive  instruction  from  his 
wise  maxims." — Ordcric  Vital,  Eccl.  Hist.,  B.  IV.,  ch.  vii. 

t  "  Hereupon  Osmund,  Bishop  of  Salisburj-,  devised  that  ordinary, 
or  form  of  ser\-ice,  which  hereafter  was  observed  in  the  whole  realm. 


36  Oration  at  New   York. 

scribing  the  Scriptures,  came  with  the  Normans  into 
England.  New  learnings  were  absorbed  from  the 
now  nearer  Continent.  The  civil  and  the  canon  law 
became  the  subjects  of  careful  study.  Distinguished 
scholars  acquired  a  European  fame  :  John  of  Salis- 
bury, with  William  of  Malmesbury,  in  the  twelfth 
century ;  Matthew  Paris,  the  historian,  and  sharp 
critic  of  Rome,  in  the  thirteenth,  with  Roger  Bacon, 
greatest  of  mediaeval  philosophers,  and  Robert  Gros- 
tete.  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  most  distinguished  of  prel- 
ates ;'"■  Occam,  the  "  invincible  "  and  the  "  unique,"  in 
the  fourteenth  century,with  Thomas  Bradwardine,  pro- 

....  Henceforward  the  most  ignorant  parish-priest  in  England,  hav- 
ing no  more  Latin  in  all  his  treasury,  yet  understood  the  meaning  of  se- 
citndum  usian  Sariiin,  that  all  service  must  be  ordered  '  according  to  the 
course  and  custom  of  Salisbury  church.'  " — Fuller,  Church  Hist,  of 
Brit.,  B.  III.,  Sec.  i,  §  23. 

*  Matthew  Paris'  description  of  him  is  worth  quoting  for  its  simplicity 
and  force,  and  as  incidentally  illustrating  the  spirit  of  the  time  : 

"  Pendant  sa  vie,  il  avait  reprimande  publiquement  le  seigneur  pape  et 
le  roi,  corrige  les  pr^lats,  reforme  les  moines,  dirig6  les  pretres,  instruit 
les  clercs,  soutenu  les  ^coliers,  preche  devant  le  peuple,  persecute  les 
incontinents,  fouille  avec  soin  les  divers  Merits,  et  avait  ete  le  marteau  et 

le  contempteur  des  Remains II  avait  gagne  le  respect  de  tous  par 

son  zele  infatigable  a  remplir  les  fonctions  pontificales. 

"  Lorsqu'il  mourut,  ;\  savoir  la  nuit  011  il  monta  vers  le  Seigneur, 
P'oulques,  6veque  de  Londres,  entendit  au  plus  haut  des  airs  un  son 
tres-doux,  dont  la  melodic  pouvait  i  juste  titre  rccreer  et  charmer  les 

oreilles  et  le  coeur  de  celui  qui  I'entendait Alors  I'eveque  :  Par  le  foi 

que  je  dois  ;\  Saint  Paul,  je  crois  que  le  vdn^rable  ^veque  de  Lincoln,  notre 
pere,  notre  frere,  et  notre  maJtre,  a  pass6  de  ce  monde,  et  est  deji  plac6 
dans  le  royaume  du  ciel." — Chron.  de  Mat.  Par.  trad,  par  Huillard- 
Breholles,  TomeVIL,  p.  445. 


Cathedrals  and  Universities.  37 

found  in  mathematics  as  well  as  in  theology.  Churches 
and  monasteries  were  built  in  great  numbers :  the 
cathedrals  of  Canterbury,  Durham,  Rochester,  Chi- 
chester, Norwich,  Winchester,  Gloucester,  and  others 
The  Norman  spirit  and  manner  of  treatment  gave 
from  the  first  a  new  character  to  such  buildings,  which 
afterward  flowered  into  delightful  exhibition  in  the 
pointed  arches  or  the  lovely  flowing  window-tracery 
of  later  cathedrals,  as  Salisbury,  or  Wells,  or  in  the 
Westminster  chapel  of  St.  Stephen. 

The  Universities  were  organized  at  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  and  attracted  wide  public  attention.*  An 
immense  enthusiasm  for  study  prevailed  among  the 
young.  In  the  thirteenth  century  Oxford  was  second 
only  to  Paris  in  the  number  of  its  students.  Thirty 
thousand  are  said  to  have  been  there  at  one  time,  to 
learn,  as  Hume  says,  "  bad  Latin,  and  worse  logic," 
but  to  gain  enlargement  and  vigor  of  thought  from 
even  such  imperfect  studies ;  and  it  was  the  logic  of 
Aristotle  which  came  there,  through  Edmund  Rich, 
afterward  Archbishop.  The  arts  of  music  and  pic- 
torial illustration  took  a  fresh  impulse.  The  use  of 
paper,  instead  of  parchment,  multiplied  manuscripts. 


*  "Giraldus  Cambrensis,  about  1180,  seems  the  first  unequivocal  wit- 
ness to  the  resort  of  students  to  Oxford,  as  an  established  seat  of  instruc- 
tion.    But  it   is  certain  that  Vacarius  read  there  on  the  civil  law  in 
1 149,  which  affords  a  presumption  that  it  was   already  assuming  the- 
character  of  a  university." — Hallam,  Lit.  Hist.  Europe.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  16. 

The  first  charter  of  Oxford  was  granted  by  Henry  III.,  A.D.  1244. 


38  Oration  at  Nciu    York. 

The  first  really  English  book,  the  travels  of  Sir  John 
Mandeville,  appeared  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century ;  and  libraries  then  began  to  be  gathered  by 
private  persons.  Better  than  all,  the  Norman  and 
the  Saxon  elements,  so  long  exasperated  into  mutual 
hate,  began  to  assimilate,  and  to  come  into  union,  to 
form  the  ultimate  English  people ;  and  so  the  old 
spirit,  which  had  survived  Bede  and  Alfred,  and  had 
outlived  the  Conquest,  was  ready  again,  with  larger 
training,  ampler  instruments,  a  more  complete 
strength,  to  take  up  its  interrupted  work. 

Already,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  Second,  the 
Norman  had  begun  to  cease  to  be  conqueror,  while 
the  Saxon  began  to  rise  from  subjection.  He  "  initi- 
ated," it  has  been  said,  "the  rule  of  Law."  Early  in 
the  thirteenth  century  Magna  Charta  waswon,  by  the 
people  as  well  as  by  barons  and  clergy,  in  the  interest 
of  all ;  and  distinctions  of  descent  thenceforth  in 
large  measure  disappeared.  Under  Henry  Third  was 
added  the  memorable  Charter  of  the  Forest,  while 
the  Great  Charter  was  solemnly  reaffirmed.  How 
frequently  afterward  it  was  so  reaffirmed,  every  one 
knows  :  by  the  weak  king,  needing  popular  support ; 
by  the  strong  king,  wanting  money  for  wars.  Edward 
Third  reaffirmed  it  fifteen  or  more  times,  in  his  single 
reign.  Within  two  centuries  after  the  Conquest, 
A.D.  1265,  Parliament  included  citizens  and  burgesses, 
with  nobles  and  prelates.  Its  name  was  Norman,  its 
substance   English.     In  the  fourth   vear  of  Edward 


Progress  of  the  English  Law.  39 

Third  it  was  ordained  that  its  sessions  should  be 
annual ;  and  it  constantly  insisted  on  conditions  prece- 
dent before  making  its  grants,  these  conditions  being 
the  enlarged  and  secured  liberties  of  the  realm. 
Under  the  Edwards  immense  progress  was  thus  made 
in  the  law  ;  and  the  Royal  prerogative,  in  spite  of  the 
glamour  cast  upon  it  by  the  later  French  victories, 
sensibly  declined. 

The  treatise  of  Glanville,  the  earliest  probably  on 
English  law,  had  been  written  before ;  and  that  of 
Bracton  had  followed  it,  under  Henry  Third.  The 
famous  treatise  known  as  "  Fleta,"  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  First,  composed  probably  by  order  of  the 
king ;  the  tract  of  Britton,  in  Norman  French ;  the 
"  Mirror  of  Justice,"  written  perhaps  a  little  later, 
and  probably  by  a  Saxon — these  show  the  progressive 
activity  in  legal  discussion.  Year-books,  containing 
authentic  reports  of  adjudged  cases,  began  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  Second.  A  great  number  of  fruitful 
new  laws  carhe  into  existence  under  Edward  Third, 
and  on  points  of  capital  importance.  The  power  of 
the  people  was  more  clearly  recognized.  They  had 
shown  their  prowess  on  Continental  fields,  and  the 
skilled  archers,  to  whose  English  muscle  the  Norman 
arrow  had  given  a  swift  and  terrible  weapon,  had  won 
the  day  for  belted  knights  at  Crdcy  and  at  Poictiers. 
Even  the  enfranchisement  of  the  villain-class  was 
steadily  advancing ;  and  the  near  insurrection,  headed 
by  Wat  Tyler,  only  manifested  in  sudden  and  riot- 


40  Oration  at  Nezu    York. 

ous  fury  the  spirit  which  had  lono;  preceded  and  im 
pelled  it. 

The  Enghsh  language,  now  enriched  from  the 
French,  came  again  to  its  place,  not  among  the  people 
only,  but  at  the  Court.  In  a.d.  1258,  two  centuries 
after  the  Conquest,  was  first  issued  a  Royal  proclama- 
tion in  English.  The  Chancellor's  speech  was  made 
in  Parliament  in  the  same  tongue,  a  century  later, 
A.D.  1 363.  But,  a  year  before,  it  had  been  ordered  that 
pleas  in  Court  should  be  pleaded  and  judged  in  English, 
though  laws  and  records  continued  to  be  written  in 
Latin  or  in  French.  This  w^as  at  once  a  sign  and  a 
stimulant  of  the  revived  national  spirit,  which  had 
come  once  more  to  animate  the  kingdom  ;  and  this 
had  its  ultimate  menace  toward  the  Pope,  as  well  as 
toward  immediate  secular  oppressions. 

The  exactions  of  the  Papacy  in  the  thirteenth  cent- 
ury had  been  nearly  intolerable,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Magna  Charta  had  interposed  its  shining  shield 
to  protect  in  a  measure  the  national  Church.  The 
Norman  work  had  been  only  too  thoroughly  done. 
The  richest  benefices  were  held  by  foreigners.  One 
half  of  the  real  estate  in  the  kingdom  belonged  to 
the  Church.  Vast  sums  were  annually  sent  from  it,  to 
pass  out  of  sight  through  the  lavish  treasury  of  Rome 
or  Avignon.  The  finances  of  the  Crown  were  embar- 
rassed thereby,  while  the  popular  indignation  grew 
vehement  and  wide.  The  removal  of  the  Papal 
throne  into  France,  early  in  the  century,  had  shaken 


Legislation  against  the  Papacy.  41 

the  English  allegiance  to  it.  The  long  Schism  of  the 
West,  which  closed  the  century,  in  which  England 
and  France  favored  rival  pontifical  claimants,  struck 
a  heavier  blow  at  the  popular  regard  for  the  office 
itself.  The  drift  of  English  legislation  became  there- 
fore sharply  and  stubbornly  adverse  at  least  to  the 
secular  claims  of  the  Pope. 

In  the  seventh  year  of  Edward  First,  the  statute  of 
Mortmain  limited  the  acquisition  of  properties  by  the 
Church.  In  the  eighteenth  year  of  Edward  Third, 
this  was  renewed  and  its  execution  more  fully  assured. 
In  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  the  same  signal  reign  the 
statute  of  "  Provisors "  forbade  Papal  encroachment 
on  the  rights  of  those  who  should  present  to  church- 
oflices ;  and  two  years  after,  this  was  brought  to  a 
cutting  edge  by  the  sharp  writ  of  "Praemunire" — 
a  barbarous  name  for  a  righteous  procedure — which 
was  further  defined  and  reinforced  in  the  sixteenth 
year  of  Richard  Second,  by  what  the  Pope  not  un- 
naturally called  "an  execrable  statute ":""'  which  put 
out  of  the  king's  protection  any  who  should  procure 
at  Rome  translations,  processes,  excommunications, 
bulls,  or  other  instruments,  against  the  king  and  his 
dignity,  forfeiting  their  goods,  attaching  their  persons, 
and  subjecting  them  to  imprisonment  at  the  king's 


*  "  Ouamvis  dudum  in  regno  Anglic  jurisdictio  Romance  ecclesice, 
et  libertas  ecclesiastica  fuerit  oppressa,  vigore  illius  execrabilis  statuti 
■tic"— Letter  of  Martin  Fifth,  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 


42  Oration  at  New    York, 

pleasure.  It  was  the  flash  of  a  naked  blade,  warning 
the  Pope  to  keep  his  hands  off  from  England  ;  and 
this  same  writ  of  "  Praemunire  "  became  a  weapon 
of  terrible  effect,  two  centuries  after,  in  the  furious 
grasp  of  Henry  Eighth." 

It  is  apparent,  then,  that  we  at  last  have  reached  a 
point  where  many  conditions  were  favorable  in  En- 
gland to  the  revival  of  the  earlier  movement  toward 
freedom  in  religion,  and  toward  unhindered  popular 
acquaintance  with  the  books  of  the  Scripture.  Yet  it 
must  not  fail  also  to  be  noticed  that  two  forces  were 
moving,  distinctly,  and  with  violence,  in  the  opposite 
direction,  which  wxre  in  fact  only  deepened  and  made 
swifter  by  the  general  obvious  progress  toward  free- 
dom. The  one  was  the  jealous,  excited,  passionate 
spirit  of  leading  prelates,  like  Wykeham  or  Courtenay, 
whose  power  was  still  subtle  and  immense,  and  who 
were  more  strenuous  for  the  spiritual  place  and  pre- 
rogative of  the  Church,  as  they  felt  the  State  crowd- 
ing upon  their  secular  establishment.  The  other — in 
some  respects  the  more  dangerous  force — was  the 
jealousy  of  land-owners,  as  the  peasants  around  them 
were  seen  to  be  rising  toward  larger  liberties. 


*  A  very  ample  and  clear  analysis  of  the  famous  statutes  of  "  Pron- 
sors  "  and  "Praemunire"  is  given  in  Reeves'  "History  of  the  English 
Law,"  Vol.  II.,  pp.  259-269. 

Fuller's  comment  is,  as  usual,  quaint  and  vigorous:  "Some  former 
laws  had  pared  the  Pope's  nails  to  the  quick ;  but  this  cut  off  his  fingers 
in  effect,  so  that  hereafter  his  hands  could  not  grasp  and  hold  such  vast 
sums  of  money  as  before." — Church  Hist,  of  Brit.,  B.  IV.,  Sec.  i,  §33. 


Jealousy  of  Landowners.  43 

The  repeated  breaking  out  of  the  plague  in  En- 
gland, with  its  terrible  ravages — cutting  off,  it  is  sup- 
posed, nearly  half  the  population — had  unsettled  all 
conditions  of  labor,  and  men  were  lacking  to  do  neces- 
sary work,  while  harvests  rotted  on  the  ground,  and 
cattle  wandered  at  their  will.  Successive  statutes,  be- 
ginning in  A.D.  1349,  had  sought  to  compel  the  serv- 
ice of  laborers,  and  to  regulate  prices ;  but  they  con- 
stantly failed,  for  forty  years,  and  the  fear  and  wrath 
of  proprietors  were  aroused  against  the  turbulence  re- 
excited  and  extended  by  these  very  laws.  Any  influ- 
ence which  promised  additional  impulse  to  the  peasant- 
class  must  therefore  encounter  their  fierce  resistance ; 
while,  as  I  have  said,  the  prelates,  bred  in  the  traditions 
of  Rome,  were  only  more  watchful  against  every 
threatened  moral  assault  because  they  had  to  yield  and 
bend  to  the  will  of  Parliament  concerning  the  enlarge- 
ment of  their  temporal  estates. 

This  was  substantially  the  state  of  England  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century ;  and  it  is  in  the 
midst  of  this  excited,  fermenting  life — on  the  front  of 
this  old,  yet  ever-new  movement,  toward  freedom,  na- 
tionality, and  a  more  intelligent  popular  faith — be- 
tween these  sharply  threatening  perils — that  the  figure 
of  John  Wycliffe  confronts  us.  It  is  obvious,  I  think, 
that  he  appeared  at  a  critical  time ;  that  many  forces 
had  contributed  to  determine  his  spirit  and  aims,  and 
to  assign  him  his  work  in  the  world ;  and  that  that 
work,  although  it  came  in  the  fulness  of  time,  was 


44  Oration  at  New   york. 

one  of  the  most  difficult,  as  well  as  of  the  largest,  yet 
entrusted  to  any  man.  I  think  it  will  appear,  too,  that 
he  was  of  singular  fitness  for  it,  and  did  it  with  a 
supreme  fidelity  ;  and  that  the  fruit  of  it  never  has 
passed  from  English  history.  In  some  respects,  cer- 
tainly, his  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  of  all  the  fig- 
ures which  his  time  presents.  The  Saxon  and  the 
Norman  were  singularly  combined  in  the  great  En- 
glishman, at  once  scholar  and  statesman,  philosopher 
and  ambassador,  devout  recluse  and  determined  re- 
former. And  we,  to-night,  may  well  be  conscious  of 
real  and  rich  indebtedness  to  him. 

The  principal  outward  incidents  of  his  life  are  suffi- 
ciently familiar.  He  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  not  far 
from  Richmond,  famous  for  its  noble  castle,  on  an 
estate  which  had  belonged  to  his  family  from  the  time 
of  the  Conquest.  The  earlier  elements  of  the  En- 
glish population  had  continued  in  that  district  in 
larger  numbers,  and  had  clung  to  the  old  traditions 
of  the  kingdom  with  greater  tenacity,  than  in  the 
midland  and  southern  counties,^*  though  Wycliffe's 
own  family,  to  the  end  of  its  history,  remained  at- 
tached with  peculiar  zeal  to  the  Roman  Church.     It 


*  "  The  Norman  successors  of  the  Bastard  dwelt  in  full  safety  in  the 
Southern  provinces,  but  it  was  scarcely  without  apprehension  that  they 
journeyed  beyond  the  Humber  ;  and  a  historian  of  the  twelfth  century 
[William  of  Malmesbury]  tells  us  that  they  never  visited  that  part  of 
their  kingdom  without  an  army  of  veteran  soldiers.  It  was  in  the  North 
that  the  tendency  to  rebel  against  the  social  order  established  by  the 
Conquest  longest  endured." — Thierry,  "Nor.  Cong.,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  294. 


Early  Life  of  Wy cliff e.  45 

seems,  indeed,  to  have  carefully  covered  the  natural 
traces  of  his  inheritance  in  it,  to  whose  fame  alone  it 
owes  remembrance. 

In  the  year  1324,  according  to  the  common  state- 
ment, or,  more  probably,  a  little  earlier,  the  boy 
John  was  here  born.  Of  his  instruction  in  child- 
hood, we  have  no  special  knowledge,  as  indeed  he 
has  told  us  almost  nothing  of  his  life,  at  any  point, 
being  too  great  for  egotism,  and  too  much  engrossed 
w^ith  public  work  to  perpetuate  the  incidents  of 
his  personal  history  ;  but  probably  about  the  year 
1335,  he  went  to  Oxford,  and  entered  one  of  the 
five  colleges  then  there  existing — either  Merton  or, 
as  seems  more  probable,  Balliol,  with  which  he 
was  certainly  afterward  connected,  and  which  had 
been  founded  by  a  family  whose  estates  lay  near  his 
home.  He  was  at  the  University  a  "  Borealis,"  or 
member  of  the  northern  "  Nation,"  which  had  its 
own  Proctor,  and  which  represented  whatever  was 
freest  in  the  spirit  of  the  place ;  and  the  whole  Uni- 
versity— which  was  then  simply  a  vast  public  school 
— constituted  a  democratic  cosmopolitan  society,  in 
which  knowledge  gave  leadership,  and  in  which  the 
scholars  of  different  countries  were  equally  at  home. 
Richard  of  Armagh,  not  yet  Archbishop,  was  in  Ox- 
ford at  the  time,  of  whom  Neander  speaks  as  "a  fore- 
runner of  Wycliffe,  by  his  freedom  of   thought;"* 


*  Hist,  of  Church,  Vol.  V.,  p.  134. 


46  Oratio7i  at  New   York. 

and  Thomas  Bradwardine  had  recently  been  there, 
who  anticipated  Edwards  in  his  doctrine  of  the  will, 
and  whose  vigor  of  character  made  all  his  speculation 
energetic  and  impressive.  How  far  the  young  stu- 
dent was  in  contact  with  such  teachers  cannot  be 
affirmed ;  but  doubtless  the  line  and  fervid  spirit 
which  emanated  from  them  affected  all  minds  as  re- 
sponsive as  his,  and  all  hearts  as  deeply  touched  with 
a  sense  of  religion. 

He  became,  of  course,  familiar  with  Latin,  as  then 
ised  among  scholars,  but  not  with  Greek,  which  was 
not  yet  at  home  in  Oxford  ;  and  the  liberal  arts, 
grammar,  rhetoric,  and  logic  —  the  "Trivium," — 
arithmetic,  astronomy,  geometry,  and  music  —  the 
"  Quadrivium," — we  know  that  he  successfully  pur- 
sued. The  physical  and  mathematical  studies,  in- 
deed, appear  to  have  had  for  him  quite  as  strong  an 
attraction  as  the  logical  and  speculative.  He  passed 
from  them  all  to  the  study  of  Theology,  including 
the  interpretation  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
as  found  in  the  Vulgate,  the  reading  of  the  Fathers, 
and  of  the  Scholastic  Doctors,  with  the  study  of  the 
canon  law.  That  he  studied  also  the  civil  law, 
then  or  afterward,  is  equally  certain,  with  the  history 
and  the  canonical  law  of  his  own  kingdom.  And 
these  were  to  bear  large  fruit  in  his  life. 

In  such  pursuits  probably  ten  years  were  occupied, 
and  by  a.d.  1345,  or  thereabouts — the  year  before 
Cr(^cy,  four  years  after  Petrarch  had  been  crowned  at 


University  Life  of  Wycliffe.  47 

the  Capitol — he  was  fitted  for  larger  University-work, 
as  a  teacher  and  a  Master.  It  is  not  necessary  to  fol- 
low his  course  for  the  twenty  years  afterward,  which 
were  years  with  him  of  silent  growth,  in  preparation 
for  a  service  v/hich  he  could  then  have  scarcely  ex- 
pected. After  A.D.  1357  he  was  for  some  time  a 
Fellow  of  Merton  College;  in  a.d.  1361  he  was 
Master  of  Balliol ;  and  the  same  year  he  was  nomi- 
nated by  his  college  Rector  of  Fylingham,  a  Lincoln- 
shire parish,  which  allov*''ed  him  to  continue  in  con- 
nection with  Oxford.  For  a  short  time  he  was 
Warden  of  Canterbury  Hall,  appointed  by  the  Arch- 
bishop, its  founder,  on  account  of  his  excellencies  of 
learning  and  of  life,*  but  soon  removed  by  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  prelate;  and  in  a.d.  1366  he  first  ap- 
peared upon  the  stage  of  national  affairs,  and  began 
to  gather  that  broader  brightness  about  his  name 
which  was  finally  to  become  a  shining  and  enduring 
splendor.  To  understand  his  attitude  and  course,  at 
that  time  and  after,  we  must  recall  their  particular 
and  controlling  public  conditions. 

In  the  year  before,  1365,  Urban  Fifth  had  made 
claim  upon  Edward  for  the  payment  of  a  thousand 
marks,  as  the  annual  feudal  tribute  promised  by  John 


*  "  Ad  vitae  tuas  et  conversationis  laudabilis  honestatem,  litcrarum- 
que  scientiam,  quibus  personam  tuam  in  artibus  mag-istratum  altissimus 
insignivit,  mentis  nostras  oculos  dirigentes,  ac  da  tuis  tidelitate,  circum- 
spectione,  et  industria  plurimum  confidentes,"  eic— Quoted  by  Vaughan, 
"Life  of  Wycliffe"  Vol.  I.,  p.  41 7- 


48  Oration  at  Nezv    York. 

to  Innocent  Third  for  the  kingship  of  England,  and 
also  for  payment  of  large  arrears  due  on  such  tribute. 
Edward,  in  whose  reign  it  had  never  been  paid,  re- 
ferred this  to  Parliament ;  and  that  body  was  assem- 
bled in  the  following  May.  Its  prompt  and  emphatic 
decision  was,  that  such  a  tribute  should  not  be  paid  ; 
that  John  had  had  no  right  to  pledge  it,  and  had 
violated  his  oath  of  Coronation  in  the  act ;  and  that, 
if  the  Pope  should  prosecute  the  claim,  the  whole 
power  of  the  kingdom  should  be  set  to  resist  him. 
This  defiant  decision  was  sufficient  for  its  purpose, 
and  the  claim  was  never  again  presented.  From  that 
time  on,  England  stood  free  from  any  pretence  to 
vassalage  toward  the  Pope,  and  had  its  path  more 
clear  than  before  to  future  freedoms. 

It  is  probable  that  Wy cliff e  w^as  a  member  of  this 
Parliament,  representing  the  clergy,  or  summoned  by 
the  king.'"'"  He  was,  at  all  events,  so  prominent  an 
advocate  of  its  decision,  that  a  champion  of  the 
Papacy  made  upon  him  a  vehement  assault,  in  reply 
to  which  he  gives  the  reasons  urged  in  Parliament, 
by  temporal  lords,  against  such  a  tribute.  From 
these  he  concludes  that  the  treaty  of  John  had  been 
invalid  and  immoral ;  and  he  so  presents  the  reasons 


*  The  facts  which  make  this  probable  are  clearly  and  largely  stated 
by  Lechler  ["  John  Wiclif,"  etc.,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  200-214],  and  the  subse- 
quent increasing  influence  of  the  Reformer,  with  the  Court,  and  in  the 
country,  seems  naturally  to  start  from  such  an  early  position  of  special 
public  trust  and  prominence. 


A  Member  of  a  Royal  Co?nmzssw?i.  49 

for  this  as  to  show  his  profound  sympathy  with 
them,  if  he  had  not  himself  suggested  and  shaped  them. 
He  calls  himself,  at  the  outset  of  his  tract,  "an 
obedient  son  of  the  Church  of  Rome;"  and  such,  no 
doubt,  he  then  felt  himself  to  be.  But  the  vivid 
spirit  of  nationality  and  of  liberty  which  appears  in 
the  tract,  with  the  habit  of  referring  to  permanent 
equities  as  properly  controlling  in  public  affairs,  was 
prophetic  of  much  ;  and  the  instinct  of  the  Papacy 
must  already  have  felt  in  him  its  future  effective  and 
intrepid  assailant.  He  was,  at  this  time,  you  obserye, 
perhaps  forty-five  years  of  age,  a  distinguished  scholar, 
according  to  the  best  standard  of  the  time,  famous  as 
a  philosopher,  an  influential  churchman,  prominently 
connected  with  the  leading  University.  Now  that 
his  spirit  was  clearly  declared,  equally  fearless,  search- 
ing, and  sagacious,  now  that  the  expert  and  practised 
logician  had  shown  himself  also  skilled  in  affairs,  it 
might  justly  be  expected  that  his  work  would  widen, 
and  his  influence  become  a  large  and  beneficent  na- 
tional force. 

Academical  and  royal  distinctions  soon  came  to 
him,  as  he  was  made  Doctor  in  the  faculty  of  The- 
ology, and,  perhaps,  royal  chaplain ;  and  in  a.  d. 
1374  he  was  appointed  by  the  king  a  member  of  the 
commission  sent  to  treat  with  a  Papal  embassy,  at  the 
city  of  Bruges,  on  matters  of  grave  and  long  dispute. 
His  name  stands  second  on  this  commission,  follow- 
ing that  of  the  Bishop  of  Bangor ;  and  the  members 


50  Oration  at  New   York. 

were  empowered  to  conclude  a  just  compact  on  the 
matters  in  question  with  the  Papal  nuncios.  The 
commission  was  associated  with  a  laro-e  and  brilliant 
civil  embassy,  at  the  head  of  which  was  the  Prince's 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster,  with  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  and  the  Bishop  of  London. 

Then,  probably  for  the  first  time,  Wycliffe  saw  a 
foreign  city,  and  one  which  presented  as  striking  a 
contrast  to  anything  in  England  as  did  perhaps  any 
town  on  the  Continent.  The  busy,  wealthy,  populous 
Bruges  was  then  at  the  height  of  its  middle-age  fame  : 
with  the  picturesque  building  just  erected,  whose 
l)elfry-chimes  still  ring  in  the  square,  and  are  echoed 
in  poetry,  with  twenty  ministers  of  foreign  kingdoms 
having  hotels  within  the  walls,  and  with  companies  of 
merchants  there  established  from  all  parts  of  Europe  ; 
while,  at  the  time  of  Wycliffc's  visit,  were  gathered 
there  also  royal  princes  and  nobles  of  France,  with 
prelates  from  Italy,  Germany,  and  Spain.  Wycliffe 
was  brought  there  into  closer  relations  with  John  of 
Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  whose  friendship  was 
afterward  important  to  him  ;  and  it  well  may  be  that 
a  fresh  impression  of  the  lovely  and  austere  majesty 
of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  simplicity  of  that  earlier 
development  of  Christianity  in  the  world  with  which 
his  studies  had  made  him  familiar,  came  upon  his 
spirit,  while  he  saw,  as  in  microcosmic  view,  the  os- 
tentation and  pride,  the  practical  unbelief,  and  the 
hardly  veiled  license,  which  were  the  abounding  fruit 


The  ''Good  Parliamentr  51 

m  Europe  of  undisputed  Pontifical  rule.  One  cannot 
but  think  that  many  convictions,  which  were  govern- 
ing with  him  in  subsequent  life,  took  emphasis  if  not 
origin  from  his  brief  residence  in  the  gay  and  luxuri- 
ous Flemish  town. 

The  general  result  of  the  labors  of  the  commission 
was  not  of  importance.  Some  of  its  members  were 
soon  promoted  by  the  Pope,  and  it  is  not  perhaps  a 
violent  inference  that  they  had  been  acting  from  the 
first  in  his  interest.  Wycliffe  certainly  was  not  pro- 
moted, save  as  he  was  lifted  to  fresh  prominence  and 
influence  by  the  sharp  prelatical  attacks  made  upon 
him  ;  and  this  may  warrant  us  in  presuming  that  he 
had  been  faithful  to  king  and  realm,  in  the  exciting 
scenes  and  service.  In  a.d.  1374  he  was  made  by 
the  king  Rector  of  Lutterworth,  with  which  his  name 
was  ever  after  to  be  connected  ;  and,  as  I  have  said, 
the  steadfast  stuff  of  which  he  was  made,  his  ability, 
energy,  and  loyalty  to  freedom,  were  soon  further 
tested  in  public  affairs. 

In  A.D.  1376  the  Parliament,  afterward  known  as 
"the  good  Parliament,"  was  assembled,  before  which 
came  the  complaints  of  the  kingdom  against  the 
Papacy,  and  by  which  these  complaints  were  presented 
to  the  king.  The  continued  intrusion  of  foreign 
clergy  into  English  church-livings,  the  scandalous 
<:haracter  of  many  who  bought  these  from  Papal 
brokers,  the  decay  of  religion  consequent  upon  it, 
with  the  pecuniary  exhaustion  of  the  kingdom  by  the 


52  Oration  at  New    Yo7'k. 

sums  drained  from  it  to  be  spent  in  dissolute  pleasures 
abroad — these  were  some  of  the  vehement  com- 
plaints ;  and  the  fact  that  in  England  was  a  Papal 
collector,  gathering  tribute  to  be  sent  to  the  Pope, 
and  claiming  the  first-fruits  of  church-livings,  was 
specially  presented,  with  sharp  remonstrance.  It  is 
probable  that  Wycliffe  was  a  member  of  this  Parlia- 
ment, and  that  its  complaints  were  shaped  by  his 
hand.  The  very  language  in  which  they  are  framed 
seems  marked  with  his  idiom,  and  the  relation  sug- 
gested between  moral  disorder  and  the  physical  calam- 
ities which  troubled  the  realm,  is  exactly  in  his  spirit. 
In  the  following  year,  1377,  he  attacked  Garnier, 
the  Papal  collector,  with  indignant  intensity,  and, 
passing  beyond  the  subordinate  agents,  with  profound 
moral  earnestness  he  challenged  the  system  which 
made  them  possible.  He  came  thus  at  last  into  that 
personal  grapple  with  the  Pontiff  which  might  from 
the  first  have  been  foreseen  :  maintaining  that  he  can 
sin  ;  that  what  he  does  is  by  no  means  right  because 
he  does  it ;  that  he  is  bound  to  be  preeminent  in  fol- 
lowing Christ,  in  humility,  meekness,  and  brotherly 
love ;  implying,  plainly,  that  otherwise  he  is  no  Pope 
at  all.  The  crowning  doctrine  here  appears  that 
Holy  Scripture  is  for  the  Christian  the  rule  and 
standard  of  the  truth,  and  that  what  conflicts  with 
it  has  no  authority.  He  is  steadily  advancing  on  the 
path  of  the  principles  to  which  study,  reflection,  pub- 
lic service  have  brought  him,  without  looking  back. 


Summoned  before  Convocation.  53 

He  has  won,  already,  a  high  place  in  England,  and 
he  uses  his  power  for  freedom  and  truth  with  an 
unreserved  outlay  of  strength  which  recalls  the  Saxon 
times  and  blood.  It  will  evidently  not  do  to  leave 
him  alone.  At  this  point,  therefore,  breaks  upon 
him  the  first  onset  of  that  Papal  assault  w^hich  was 
never  afterward  to  cease  to  pursue  him  till  his  books 
had  been  prohibited,  and  his  bones  had  been  burned. 
In  February,  a.d.  1377,  he  was  summoned  to  appear 
before  the  Convocation,  obviously  on  account  of  the 
stand  which  he  had  taken  against  prelatical  and  Papal 
aggression.  When  the  Convocation  assembled  at  St. 
Paul's,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster,  and  Percy,  the  Grand 
Marshal  of  England,  with  armed  retainers,  appeared 
with  him,  as  friends  and  defenders ;  together  with 
several  personal  friends,  and  some  theologians  who 
had  come  as  his  advocates.  An  altercation  instantly 
arose,  between  the  Marshal,  with  the  Duke,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  imperious  Bishop  of  London ;  the 
result  of  which  was  that  Wycliffe  was  withdrawn  from 
the  tribunal  without  having  had  occasion  to  open  his 
lips.  Whatever  purpose  had  been  cherished  against 
him,  for  the  time  at  least  had  utterly  failed,  and  he 
went  out  as  free  as  before.  Immediately,  however, 
the  English  Bishops,  or  some  of  them,  collected  prop- 
ositions affirmed  to  be  his,  forwarded  them  to  Rome, 
and  sought  the  Papal  interposition.  Of  the  nine- 
teen propositions  so  presented,  five  referred  to  legal 
matters,  as  the  rights  of  property  and  inheritance; 


54  Oration  at  New   York. 

four  concerned  the  right  of  rulers  to  withdraw  from 
the  Church  its  temporal  endowments,  if  these  should 
be  abused  ;  nine  related  to  the  power  of  Church  disci- 
pline, with  its  necessary  limits ;  and  the  closing  one 
maintained  that  the  Pontiff  himself,  being  in  error, 
may  be  challenged  by  laymen,  and  overruled.  The 
"power  of  the  keys,"  according  to  this  clear-sighted 
witness,  is  only  effective  when  used  under  the  law  of 
the  Gospel ;  and  no  man  can  really  be  excommuni- 
cated unless  by  himself — unless,  that  is,  he  has  given 
for  it  sufficient  occasion. 

On  the  basis  of  these  articles  Gregory  Eleventh, 
in  May,  a.d.  1377,  issued  five  bulls  against  their 
author.  Three  of  them  were  addressed  to  the  Arch- 
bishop, with  the  Bishop  of  London,  commanding 
them  to  ascertain  if  such  propositions  had  been  in 
fact  affirmed  by  Wycliffe,  in  "  a  detestable  insanity," 
and  if  so,  to  imprison  him  until  further  instructions  ; 
commanding  them  also  to  cite  him  publicly,  lest  he 
should  seek  to  escape  by  flight  ;  and  requiring  them 
to  bring  the  obnoxious  articles  to  the  notice  of  the 
king.  Another  bull  was  addressed  to  the  king,  in- 
forming him  of  the  commission,  and  requiring  his 
aid  ;  and  still  another  to  the  Chancellor  and  Univers- 
ity of  Oxford,  enjoining  them,  on  pain  of  loss  of  all 
their  privileges,  to  commit  Wycliffe  and  his  disciples 
to  custody,  and  deliver  them  to  the  authorized  com- 
mission. 

The  death  of  Edward  Third,  with  the  accession  of 


Delay  of  fiirtJicr  Proceedings.  55 

Richard  Second,  which  presently  occurred,  and  the 
spirit  opposed  to  the  Papal  court  which  appeared 
vividly  in  the  following  Parliament,  made  it  expedi- 
ent to  delay  taking  action  under  these  instruments  ; 
and  it  was  not  until  the  end  of  the  year,  after  Parlia- 
ment was  prorogued,  that  proceedings  commenced. 
Meantime,  Wycliffe  had  drawn  up  an  opinion,  for  the 
king  and  council,  on  the  right  of  the  kingdom  to 
restrain  its  treasure  from  being  carried  to  foreign 
parts,  in  defiance  of  Papal  censure.  With  utmost 
emphasis  he,  of  course,  affirms  this  right  :  on  the  sev- 
eral grounds  of  the  law  of  nature,  the  law  of  the 
Gospel,  the  law  of  conscience  ;  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  this  opinion  rendered  any  less  fierce  the  hostility 
to  him  which  was  already  intense  at  Rome. 

A  week  before  Christmas,  the  bull  addressed  to 
the  University  was  sent  to  the  Chancellor,  with  the 
demand  that  he  ascertain  if  Wycliffe  had  propounded 
the  alleged  theses,  and  if  so,  to  cite  him  to  appear  in 
London  before  the  commission.  The  marked  differ- 
ence between  this  mandate  and  the  sharper  terms  of 
the  Papal  bull  shows  a  doubt  of  the  temper  which 
might  prevail  in  the  University,  with  a  fear  of  proba- 
ble popular  sympathy  with  the  accused.  The  heads 
of  the  University  seem  to  have  taken  no  action  what- 
ever on  the  Papal  bull,  but  to  have  so  far  responded 
to  the  commission  as  to  serve  upon  Wycliffe  the  re- 
quired citation.  Early,  therefore,  in  a.d.  1378.  the 
vigorous  and  undaunted  theologian  appeared  before 


56  Oration  at  N'czv   York. 

the  Archbishop  and  Bishop,  and  made  written  answer 
for  the  theses.  But  he  did  not  come  in  his  own 
strength  alone.  He  was  now  recognized  as  the  faith- 
ful representative  of  a  wide  English  feeling.  The 
widow  of  the  Black  Prince,  now  Queen-Mother, 
sent  an  officer  to  the  commission,  charging  the  prel- 
ates to  pronounce  on  him  no  sentence.  The  people 
of  London  forced  their  way  into  Lambeth  Chapel, 
and  showed  their  purpose  to  defend  him.  The  result 
of  the  proceeding  bore,  therefore,  no  proportion  to 
its  threatening  commencement ;  for,  though  he  was 
forbidden  to  teach  the  specified  theses — on  the  ground 
that  they  would  give  offence  to  the  laity — he  left  the 
court,  for  the  open  air  of  streets  and  fields,  with  his 
freedom  unfettered,  with  his  prominence  and  power 
only  increased,  by  the  futile  assault.  The  successive 
attacks  of  those  who  hated  him  had  given  him  a  dis- 
tinction which  he  never  seems  to  have  sought  for 
himself. 

At  just  this  time  began  that  long  Western  Schism, 
in  which  Urban  Sixth  was  acknowledged  by  En- 
gland, Clement  Seventh  by  France  ;  in  which,  subse- 
quently, there  were  three  Popes  at  once,  almost 
equally  detestable,  with  equal  violence  anathematizing 
each  other  ;  and  which  was  not  closed  till  thirty  years 
after  Wycliffe's  death.  An  immense  impression  was 
made  upon  him  by  this  event  ;  and  from  that  time, 
not  ceasing  to  be  a  diligent  scholar,  a  patriotic  coun- 
sellor, a  devout  theologian,  he  more  and  more  came 


Progress  in   Wy cliff es  Convictions.  57 

to  the  front  as  a  radical  and  devoted  Church  re- 
former. The  thin,  tall  figure,  the  sharply-cut  features, 
the  penetrating  eye,  the  firm-set  lips  and  flowing 
beard,  which  his  portraits  present,  the  thoughtful, 
earnest,  dignified  presence,  of  which  all  men  took 
note,  were  thenceforth  to  be  found  in  the  perilous 
van  of  the  long  English  battle  for  a  liberated  Church 
and  a  Scriptural  faith. 

In  this  supreme  period  of  his  life,  a  marked  and 
even  a  rapid  progress  is  to  be  observed  in  his  judg- 
ments of  truth,  leading  him  toward,  if  not  wholly  to, 
the  ultimate  ground  of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 
The  Lutheran  doctrine  of  Justification  by  faith  alone, 
he  never  reached ; ""  but  his  mind  detached  itself 
rapidly  and  surely  from  many  entangling  previous 
opinions  ;  it  sought  for  truth  on  every  side,  with  eager 
care  and  fruitful  fervor ;  and  as  fast  as  he  reached  any 
certain  conclusion  he  flung  the  most  strenuous  energy 
of  his  soul  into  the  work  of  conveying  it  to  others. 
His  time  was  short ;  his  work  was  noble  and  prolific. 

A  skilful,  acute,  and  practised  logician,  a  realist  in 


*  "  Turning  now  to.  the  other  side  of  faith,  Wiclif  evidently  assumes 
that  the  kernel  of  faith  is  a  state  oi  feeling,  a  moral  activity,  when,  in 
accord  with  the  theology  of  his  age,  and  agreeably  to  Aristotelian  meta- 
physics, he  lays  particular  stress  upon  the  fides  forviata,  and  defines 
faith  to  be  a  steadfast  cleaving  to  God  or  to  Christ  in  love  {^per  amorem 

caritatis  perpetuo  ad/icsrere) For  this  reason,  we  can  hardly 

expect  beforehand  to  find  WicHf  doing  homage  to  the  Pauline  Reforma- 
tion-truth of  the  justification  of  the  sinner  by  faith  alone." — Lechlcr, 
"John  Wiclif"  etc.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  79. 


58  Oration  at  New    Y'ork. 

philosophy,  yet  a  theologian  largely  made  by  the 
heart,  he  took  Reason  and  Authority  as  the  sources  of 
all  religious  knowledge  :  "  Reason  "  representing  the 
intuitive  and  instructed  mind  and  conscience;  "Au- 
thority "  representing  the  Divine  Scripture.  To  the 
claim  of  the  latter  on  human  submission  he  admits 
no  limit.  It  is  superior  to  all  traditions  and  decrees  ; 
the  fundamental  charter  and  law  of  the  Church.  It 
is  a  book  for  every  man  ;  to  be  interpreted  by  the 
Christian  for  himself,  with  prayerfulness  and  humility, 
with  a  reasonable  regard  for  the  general  Christian 
judgment  of  its  contents,  and  especially  for  that  of 
the  great  Church-Fathers,  but  with  an  implicit  per- 
sonal reliance  on  the  present  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  make  evident  its  meaning,  as  Christ  had  opened 
it  to  His  disciples.  He  was  himself  a  profound 
and  constant  student  of  the  Scriptures,  quoting  from 
them  freely,  showing  comparison  of  part  with  part, 
and  so  saturating  his  mind  with  even  their  language 
that  the  Biblical  phrase  clings  to  his  pen  when  it  is  set 
in  freest  motion.  He  sought  always  the  spiritual 
sense,  yet  for  that  very  reason  was  attentive  to  minute 
particulars  of  expression,  and  to  the  thought  sug- 
gested by  these  in  the  highest  moods  of  feeling.  He 
found  the  very  life  of  his  spirit  in  the  Word,  and 
more  and  more,  to  the  end  of  his  career,  engaged  his 
soul  in  the  study  and  the  love  of  what  he  declares  the 
most  true,  faultless,  perfect,  and  holy  Law  of  God. 
In  the  doctrine  derived  by  him  from  the  Scriptures 


Doctrine  of  Wy cliff e.  59 

he  was  substantially  Augustinian,  though  of  unfettered 
thought,  and  difTering  at  some  points  from  the  illus- 
trious Numidian.  The  Law  of  God  is  to  him  the 
basis  and  the  measure  of  all  dominion,  in  the  State 
and  in  the  Church  ;  and  in  Redemption  is  the  key  to 
Creation.  Salvation  is  of  grace  alone,  not  merited  by 
good  w^orks,  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  its  only 
Mediator.  He  is  Divine  in  nature  and  work,  yet 
also  the  centre  and  head  of  Humanity,  set  forth  as 
such  with  manifold  fulness  ;  and  the  dignity  of  man's 
nature,  with  the  realness  and  the  reach  of  his  moral 
responsibility,  appears  from  the  fact  that  a  Being  so 
august  has  intervened  to  redeem  him.''"  Of  the  Virgin 
Mary  the  utmost  which  he  affirms,  in  later  years,  is 
that  she  was  probably  sinless,  but  that  it  is  folly  to 
contend  on  the  question,  since  belief  in  her  sinless- 
ness  is  nowise  essential  to  salvation.  Tow^ard  homage 
to  images,  and  prayers  to  the  Saints,  he  became  pro- 
nounced in  his  antagonism,  discerning  the  danger  of 
idolatry  to  the  image,  and  holding  any  devotion  to 
a  Saint  only  of  value  as  it  may  nourish  piety  to  the 
Lord.  He  did  not  indiscriminately  recognize  Saints 
— denying  vehemently  the  power  of  the  Church  to 
canonize  many  concerning  whose  holiness  she  could 


*  "It  was  the  worth  of  human  nature,  as  arising  from  these  facts 
[that  God  had  made  man  in  His  hkeness,  and  that  Christ  had  died  ta 
save  him  'unto  the  bliss  of  Heaven ']  which  rendered  Wychffe  so  much 
the  foe  of  war,  and  so  much  devoted  to  the  religious  welfare  of  men." — 
Vaughan,  ''Life  of  WycUffe,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  32S, 


6o  Oration  at  New    York. 

not  have  been  certain.  He  held  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  Invisible — the  body  of  the  Elect — in  which 
the  impure  can  have  no  place,  however  distinguished 
in  prelatical  rank,  they  belonging  to  the  "  Church  of 
the  Malignants  "  ;  and  in  this  true  Church  the  priest- 
hood is  common  to  believers,  and  ever}^  priest  set 
apart  to  the  office  has  right  to  administer  all  the  sac- 
raments. The  celibacy  of  the  clergy — though  it 
was  his  own  rule — he  indignantly  denounced,  when 
imposed  upon  others,  as  "unscriptural,  hypocritical, 
and  morally  pernicious"  ;  and  if,  as  he  conceives  to 
be  possible,  all  church-officials  should  give  them- 
selves to  evil  ways,  the  laity  would  compose  the 
Church,  and  must  displace  and  judge  their  rulers. 

Of  only  two  sacraments  does  he  treat.  Baptism 
and  the  Supper ;  and  against  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation  he  flung  his  whole  force,  in  reverberating 
assault.  Till  a.d.  1378  he  had  received  it  as  tradition- 
ally taught.  An  interval  of  questioning  evidently 
followed.  With  all  his  power,  in  utmost  energy  of 
speech  and  spirit,  after  a.d.  13S1  he  repels  and 
denounces  it :  as  contrary  to  God's  Word ;  contrary 
to  the  early  tradition  of  the  Church  ;  as  pregnant 
with  all  evil  effects ;  the  most  dangerous  of  heresies 
ever  "  smuggled  into  the  Church  by  cunning  hypo- 
crites.""'^ He  held  in  substance,  from  that  time,  the 
Lutheran  doctrine    of   the   eucharist :   no  local    cor- 


*  LecJiler,  "Jo/m  Wiclif,"  etc.,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  177-184. 


His  Relation  to  the  Papacy.  6i 

poreal  presence  of  Christ  in  the  consecrated  wafer, 
but  a  spiritual  presence,  to  be  spiritually  discerned. 
Yet,  though  the  glorified  body  is  in  heaven,  and  is 
not  re-created  by  any  priest,  or  bruised  by  the  teeth  of 
any  recipient,'^  there  is  a  certain  energy  from  it  in  the 
elements,  as  there  is  a  certain  presence  of  the  soul  in 
all  parts  of  the  body ;  and  the  believing  communicant 
is  the  one  for  whom  this  has  its  efficacy.  He  finds 
no  warrant  for  any  sacrament  except  in  express  words 
of  the  Scripture ;  and  the  preaching  of  that  is  to  him 
a  true  sacrament. 

Very  briefly,  and  of  course  imperfectly  stated,  this 
is  substantially  the  doctrinal  system  held  by  Wycliffe, 
in  his  mature  and  final  thought ;  and  when  we  recall 
his  resolute  spirit,  his  fervent  zeal,  and  sovereign  cour- 
age, with  his  deep  sense  of  the  calamities  of  the  time, 
and  his  hope  for  the  final  reformation  of  Christendom, 
we  easily  see  how  inevitably  he  stood,  by  reason  of  it, 
toward  the  Papacy,  as  an  enemy,  definite  and  unspar- 
ing ;  toward  the  Scriptures,  as  counting  no  labor  too 
great,  and  no  sacrifice  too  costly,  for  their  widest  dis- 
tribution. 

In  his  relation  to  the  Papacy  three  stages  are 
apparent.  Till  a.d.  1378  he  had  recognized  the 
primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  while  holding  him 


*  As  Raymond  Lull  expressed  it :  "  Fuit  unquam  ullum  mirabile  vel 
ulla  humilitas,  quae  cum  ipso  possit  comparari,  ....  quod  tuum  corpus 
adeo  nobile  se  permittat  matidiicari  et  traciari  ab  homine  peccatore 
misero  "  ? — See  Neander,  "Hist.  Church,"  Vol.  IV.,  p.  336  (note). 


62  Oration  at  Nczu    York. 

by  no  means  infallible,  or  possessed  of  plenary  spiritual 
power,  and  sharply  rejecting  his  right  to  intermeddle 
with  State  legislation.  From  that  time  till  a.d.  1381 
he  less  and  less  esteemed  the  Papacy,  as  having  any 
Divine  authority,  and  came  to  think  it  desirable  for 
the  Church  to  dispense  with  both  Popes,  then  clamor- 
ing for  allegiance.  And  from  a.d.  1381  to  the  day 
of  his  death,  the  Pope  was  to  him  the  veritable  anti- 
Christ  ;  the  pontifical  claims  were  flatly  blasphemous  ; 
the  Papal  office  had  been  a  device  of  the  Adversary 
of  souls,  and  the  homage  paid  to  it  was  detestable 
idolatry.  No  words  of  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century  were  ever  more  sweeping  in  severity  toward 
the  Papacy  than  were  the  words  of  this  churchman  of 
England,  this  eminent  leader  in  its  foremost  Uni- 
versity, five  hundred  years  since ;  and  all  men  might 
be  sure  that  if  ever  a  Pope  should  get  opportunity, 
the  sword  or  the  flame  would  have  one  swift  victim  \ 
In  connection  with  this  assault  on  the  Papacy  he 
came  to  conflict  with  the  Mendicant  Orders,  to  attack 
whom  at  that  time  was  to  make  the  kingdom  bristle 
with  enemies.  He  had  had  with  them  mainly  pleasant 
relations  till  a.d.  1378,  and  had  rather  exempted  them 
from  the  fiery  censures  which  he  even  then  visited  on 
the  secular  clergy  ;  but  from  that  time,  especially  after 
A.D.  1 38 1,  as  his  opposition  to  transubstantiation  be- 
came more  vehement,  and  his  temper  toward  the  Pope 
took  on  its  intensity,  he  opened  a  combat  with  these 
Orders  which  only  grew  in  its  unsparing  energy  till  his 


Circidation  of  the  Scriptti7'cs.  63 


death.  The  absolutism  against  which  he  revolted 
had  in  them  its  ubiquitous  messengers ;  and  he  smote 
at  them,  as  well  as  it,  with  sentences  that  cut  like  the 
blows  of  a  blade.  It  was  a  combat  from  which  they 
never  fully  recovered,  and  which  their  subsequent  de- 
fenders and  apologists  have  never  forgiven.* 

This  was  the  necessary  destructive  side  of  his  im- 
mense and  incessant  activity,  after  his  work  had  fully 
opened.  But  the  positive  side,  \vhich  gave  to  his 
efforts  enduring  and  upbuilding  power,  was  in  the 
new  teaching  of  Scriptural  truth,  and  especially  in  that 
circulation  of  the  Bible  to  which  his  whole  character, 
all  the  aims  of  his  life,  and  all  his  convictions,  with  a 
necessary  force,  inspired  and  impelled  him.  It  is  by 
this  that  he  rises  to  real  preeminence  in  his  times  ; 
that  he  suddenly  consummates,  in  a  supreme  action, 
the  long  preceding  tendencies  of  history ;  that  he 
hurled  at  the  vast  religious  imperialism  then  dominat- 
ing Europe  the  one  w^eapon  which  it  could  not  with- 
stand ;  that  he  shot  forth  a  force  still  felt  in  our  age, 
and  which  will  not  cease  to  extend  itself  in  the  world 
till  the  history  of  that  has  reached  its  conclusion  amid 
the  ultimate  prophesied  brightness.    It  was  his  princi- 

*  The  lull  discussion  by  Lechler  of  the  date  of  Wycliffe's  controversy 
with  the  Mendicant  Orders — usually  assigned  to  a.d.  1360— justifies  his 
declaration  that  "there  is  no  truth  in  the  tradition  that  Wiclif,  from  the 

very  first,  was  in  conflict  especially  with  the  Mendicant  Orders 

But  from  the  year  13S1  .  .  .  .  he  opened  a  conflict  with  the  Mendi- 
cant Monks,  which  went  on  from  that  time  till  his  death  with  ever-in- 
creasing violence. " — "  John  Wiclif,"  etc.,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  140-146. 


64  Oration  at  New   York. 

pal  earthly  work ;  and  it  gives  him  his  final  and  grand 
renown. 

I  have  spoken  already  of  his  fine  and  large  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Scriptures,  and  of  his  profound  spiritual 
sense  of  their  majestic  and  tender  meaning.  It  was 
always  observed  of  him  as  a  preacher  that  his  discourse 
was  rooted  in  the  Bible  ;  that  while  others  preached 
'  chronicles  of  the  world,  and  stories  from  the  battle 
of  Troy,'  he  clung  to  the  Scripture,  and  derived  from 
that  his  illuminating  lessons.  "The  highest  service 
that  man  may  attain  to  on  earth,"  he  says,  "is  to 
preach  God's  Word."  "  O,  marvellous  power  of  the 
Divine  seed,"  he  says  again,  "which  overpowers  the 
strong  man  armed,  softens  obdurate  hearts,  and 
changes  into  Divine  men  those  who  were  brutalized 
in  sin,  and  removed  to  an  infinite  distance  from 
God."  He  insisted  on  simplicity,  clearness,  energy, 
in  developing  and  applying  the  message  of  the  Word  * 
on  devout  feeling  in  the  ministry  of  it,  since,  "if  the 
soul  be  not  in  tune  with  the  words,  how  can  the 
words  have  power?"  But  ever  it  is  the  Word  itself 
which  is  to  him  "  the  Life-seed,  begetting  regenera- 
tion and  spiritual  life ;  "  and  in  all  proclamation  of  the 
Gospel  the  aim  must  be  so  to  flash  its  light  on  the 
spirit  as  to  bend  the  will  to  its  obedience. 

Chaucer's  picture  of  the  good  country  priest,  which 
has  often  been  conceived  to  portray  Wycliffe,  repre- 
sents him  as  diligent  and  benign,  rich  in  holy  thought 
and  work,  who  has  caught  the  words  of  life  from 


His  Itinerant  Preachers.  65 

the  Gospel*  Whether  or  not  the  poet  thought  of  this 
special  preacher,  he  has  aptly  described  him.  He 
had  seen  the  Lord;  and  the  words  which  he  had 
heard  from  Divine  lips  were  law  and  life  to  his  en- 
thusiastic and  resolute  spirit.  He  would  make  them 
the  power  of  God  to  others.  So  he  sent  forth  his 
itinerant  preachers,  without  shoes,  in  unbleached 
russet,  to  traverse  the  kingdom,  and  to  make  these 
words  familiar  in  it.  Probably  these  went  out  from 
Oxford  as  early  as  a.d.  1378— many  of  them  with  no 
clerical  ordination,  "Evangelical  men,"  colporteurs 
we  should  say ;  with  God's  Law  for  their  theme,  their 
manner  of  preaching  plain  and  simple,  their  contact 


*  "  A  good  man  was  ther  of  religioun, 
And  was  a  pore  Persoun  of  a  town  ; 
But  riche  he  was  of  holy  thought  and  werk. 
He  was  also  a  lerned  man  ;  a  clerk 
That  Cristes  gospel  gladly  wolde  preche  ; 
His  parischens  devoutly  wolde  he  teche. 
Benigne  he  was,  and  wondur  diligent. 
And  in  adversite  ful  pacient. 

*  *  t-  *  Hs 

"  This  noble  ensample  unto  his  schecp  he  yaf, 
That  ftrst  he  wroughte,  and  after  that  he  taughte, 
Out  of  the  gospel  he  the  wordes  caughte. 
**=;=*  ^  * 

"  A  bettre  preest  I  trow  ther  nowher  non  is. 
He  waytud  after  no  pompe  ne  reverence, 
Ne  maked  him  a  spiced  conscience. 
But  Cristes  lore,  and  his  apostles  twelve. 
He  taught,  and  ferst  he  folwed  it  himselve." 

Prol  to  Cant.  Talcs,  Aid.  Ed.,  Vol.  H..  p.  i6. 


66  Oration  at  New    York. 

with  the  people  constantly  close.  He  who  sent  them 
was  anticipating  Wesley,  in  the  means  which  he  used 
to  evangelize  England.  He  was  multiplying  his  voice 
a  hundred-fold,  and  planting  his  convictions,  with  an 
instant  success,  in  multitudes  of  minds. 

But  now,  as  the  greatest  of  all  instruments  for  this 
supreme  work,  he  would  have  God's  Word  itself 
translated  into  the  common  tongue  of  the  people, 
and  reproduced  in  manifold  copies,  till  the  peasant 
might  have  it,  while  the  rich  should  gain  through  it 
a  rarer  treasure  than  jewels  of  price.  This  was  not 
a  mere  measure  of  policy,  for  promoting  a  cause.  It 
was,  the  fruit  of  a  Christian  instinct,  as  deep  in  his 
soul  as  life  itself.  He  had  felt  the  inexpressible 
power  of  the  Scripture,  to  uplift  and  expand,  to  cheer 
and  inspire  the  human  spirit.  He  had  felt,  as 
profoundly  as  had  Bernard,  the  overwhelming  sense  of 
the  awfulness  of  life  in  its  relation  to  unseen  eterni- 
ties, and  the  supreme  ministry  of  the  Gospel  to  this. 
It  was  thus  an  impulse  irresistible  within  him  to  make 
the  message  which  had  come  from  the  Most  High 
accessible  to  all,  till  precept  and  promise,  prophecy 
and  truth,  should  be  to  men  a  presence  as  familiar  as 
the  sunshine  in  which  they  had  their  physical  image. 
So  he  gave  to  his  country  the  first  English  Bible,'''  to 


*  Sir  Thomas  More  claimed  to  have  seen  copies  of  an  English  Bible 
earlier  than  Wycliffe's.  He  doubtless  mistook,  for  such,  copies  of  \Vyc- 
liffe's  first  translation,  before  the  revision.  No  trace  remains  of  any 
complete  version  earlier  than  that ;  and  those  who  suffered  on  account  of 


The  First  English  Bible.  67 

be  multiplied  only  in  manuscript  copies,  to  be  read, 
perhaps,  only  by  stealth,  but  to  be  thenceforth  the 
possession  of  England,  and  to  put  an  influence  into 
its  life,  and  into  the  life  which  has  subsequently 
flowed  from  it,  across  either  hemisphere,  which  can- 
not be  outlined  in  any  discourse,  or  measured  in 
thought.  It  was  not  only  the  greatest  work  at- 
tempted in  the  age,  and  in  its  effect  the  most  benefi- 
cent ;  it  was  one  of  the  most  fundamental  and 
momentous  done  in  the  world  since  the  day  when 
Paul  took  up  his  illustrious  mission  to  the  Gentiles. 

Of  the  parts  of  the  Bible  known  to  the  Saxons,  I 
have  previously  spoken.  It  needs  only  to  be  added 
that  the  "■  Ormulum,"  so  called,  a  paraphrase  in  verse 
of  the  Gospels  and  Acts,  had  been  made  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  which  seems,  however,  to  have 
been  confined  to  a  single  copy ;  that  in  the  fourteenth 
century  two  translations  of  the  Psalms  had  been 
made,  and  that  these  were  followed,  after  a  time,  by 
one  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  But  up  to  a.d.  1360 
the  Psalter  was  the  only  book  of  the  Bible  rendered 
into  the  common  speech ;  and  copies  of  this  were  cer- 
tainly very  rare.  Within  the  next  quarter  of  a 
century  there  came  into  the  English  language  the 
entire  Bible  ;  and  it  came,  by  the  witness  of  both 
adversaries  and  friends,  through  the  impulse  and  the 


that  never  justified  themselves  for  having  it  by  appealing  to  the  existence 
of  one  preceding  it. — See  Ed.  of  IVycliffes  Bible,  by  Forshall  and  Mad- 
den, Preface,  p.  xxi.  (note). 


68  Oration  at  New   Yo7'k. 

labor  of  the  great  "  Reformer  before  the  Reforma- 
tion." How  far  he  himself  translated  its  books  is  not 
wholly  certain.  That  he  did  so  largely,  is  undisputed. 
A  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  first  translated,  seems  to 
have  led  the  way  to  the  rest.  The  Apocalypse,  with 
its  incessant  attraction  for  spirits  like  his,  in  times 
like  those,  was  probably  among  the  first  of  the  books 
to  engage  his  hand.  Others  followed :  most  of  the 
New  Testament  being  rendered  by  himself,  doubt- 
less with  partial  aid  from  friends,  the  Old  Testament, 
probably,  in  good  part,  by  Nicholas  Hereford,  an 
intimate  friend  and  co-laborer  wuth  him.  Hereford, 
however,  seems  to  have  been  suddenly  arrested  in  the 
work,  and  the  rest  to  have  been  done  by  another, 
probably  by  Wycliffe. 

Of  course,  all  the  translation  had  to  be  made  from 
the  Latin  of  Jerome,  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  being 
almost  unknown.  It  was,  in  other  words,  the  version 
of  a  version,  and  so  exposed  to  peculiar  imperfection. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  Jerome  had  had 
early  Greek  manuscripts,  earlier  than  any  known  un- 
til recently  to  the  scholars  of  Europe,  and  that  so  in 
translating  him  Wycliffe  stood  at  but  one  remove 
from  the  originals,  wiiile  his  perfect  acquaintance 
with  the  Latin  gave  him  ample  opportunity  to  make 
his  translation  energetic  and  full  as  an  English  equiv- 
alent. He  completed  it  probably  as  early,  at  the 
latest,  as  a.d.  13S2;  and  copies  of  it  were  rapidly 
made,  by  the  hands  of  skilled  and  eager  scribes.    But 


Ma7iy  Copies  of  the   Version.  69 

Wycliffe  himself  no  doubt  was  aware  that  the  work 
had  been  too  rapidly  done  for  its  highest  value  or 
best  effect,  and  planned  the  revision,  at  once  com- 
menced, which  finally  appeared  from  the  hand  of  John 
Purvey,  in  a.d.  1388,  or  four  years  after  the  master's 
death.     Of  this,  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  manu- 
scripts still  remain,  in  whole  or  in  part ;  many  writ- 
ten on  vellum,  with  elaborate  care,  to  be  the  posses- 
sion of  churches,  or  of  the  wealthy,  and   not  a  few 
bearing  the  marks  of  long  use,  and  of  the  conceal- 
ment   into   which   they  were   hurried   in   times   of 
trouble.'^     All  these  were  written,  probably,  within 
forty   years   after  Wycliffe's   death;    and   if   we   re- 
member what  destructive  search  for  them  was  made 
in  the  day  of  persecution,  how  many  went  across  the 
sea,  how  many  shriveled  in  the  fires  of  war,  how  many 
were  burned,  with  those  who  had  read  them,  in  public 
squares,  how  many  may  yet  wait  to  be  discovered, 
we  shall  see  how  extraordinary  their  number  at  first 
must  have  been.    Only  a  spirit  intense  and  determined 
could  have  driven  so  swiftly  so  many  pens.f 

*  In  the  "  List  of  Manuscripts  "  prefixed  by  Forshall  and  Madden  to  their 
edition,  one  copy  is  described  as  "in  an  upright,  large  character,  written 
with  great  care  and  neatness,  about  1400  "  :  another,  as  having  "  mitials 
to  the  books,  in  gold,  upon  coloured  grounds,  and  to  the  chapters  blue, 
flourished  with  red"  :  another,  with  initials  to  the  books  "  in  colors  and 
gold,  branching  into  well-executed  borders,"  etc. :  one,  as  bound  "  in 
black  silk,  with  silver  clasps  of  the  XVth  century  "  :  another,  "  in  green 
velvet,  with  brass  bosses  and  clasps  "  :  one,  as  "  much  stained  in  parts  : 
another,  as  having  "  suffered  from  damp  '' :  another,  as  "  in  parts  much 
mutilated,  torn,  and  soiled."     pp.  xxxix-lxiv. 

t  Westcott  speaks  of  "  about  one   hundred  and  seventy  copies  of  the 


70  Oratio^i  at  New   York. 

Of  the  effect  of  this  translation  on  the  English 
language  many  have  written.  The  judgment  of 
Lechler  is  undoubtedly  just,  that  "it  marks  an  epoch 
in  the  development  of  the  English  language,  almost 
as  much  as  Luther's  translation  does  in  the  history  of 
the  German  tongues.  The  Luther  Bible  opens  the 
period  of  the  new  High  German.  Wycliffe's  Bible 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  Middle  Encrlish."'"'  The 
most  recent  historian  of  the  English  people  speaks  of 
him  as  the  "Father  of  our  later  English  prose."f 
Forms  of  expression  still  familiar  in  our  version 
come  directly  from  his  :  as  the  beam  and  the  mote, 
the  trampling  of  swine  and  the  rending  of  dogs,  the 


whole,  or  part,  of  the  Wycliffite  versions  which  have  been  examined  " — 
thirty,  or  more,  of  the  first  translation,  the  rest  of  Purvey 's  revision.  He 
adds  the  interesting  fact  that  "  nearly  half  the  copies  are  of  a  small  size, 
such  as  could  be  made  the  constant  daily  companions  of  their  owners." 
— "Hist.  Eng.  Bible,"  p.  24, 

*  "  John  Wiclif,"  etc..  Vol.  I.,  p.  347. 

t  "  If  Chaucer  is  the  father  of  our  later  English  poetry,  Wyclif  is  the 
father  of  our  later  English  prose.  The  rough,  clear,  homely  English  of 
his  tracts,  the  speech  of  the  ploughman  and  the  trader  of  the  day,  though 
colored  with  the  picturesque  phraseology  of  the  Bible,  is,  in  its  literary 
use,  as  distinctly  a  creation  of  his  own  as  the  style  in  which  he  embodied 
it,  the  terse  vehement  sentences,  the  stinging  sarcasms,  the  hard  an- 
titheses which  roused  the  dullest  mind  like  a  whip." —  Green  s  "Hist, 
of  Eng.  People,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  4S9. 

"  The  vocabulary  of  the  reformers  ....  is  drawn  almost  wholly  from 
homely  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  habitual  language  of  religious  life,  while 
the  lays  of  Govver  and  Chaucer  are  more  freely  decorated  with  the  flow- 
ers of  an  exotic  and  artificial  phraseology."  Marsh,  "Lects.  on  Eng. 
Lang.,"  p.  168. 


Literary  Infiitencc  of  the   Version.  71 

Comforter  for  the  Paraclete,  the  Saxon  exclamation 
"  God  forbid  ! "    Mr.  Marsh  may  state  the  matter  too 
strongly  when  he  calls  the  accomplished  and  diligent 
Tyndale  "merely  a  full-grown  Wycliffe"  ;  adding  that 
he  "not  only  retains  the  general  grammatical  struct- 
ure of  the  older  version,  but  most  of  its  felicitous 
verbal  combinations,  and,  what  is  more  remarkable, 
he  preserves  even  the  rhythmic  flow  of  its  periods. "•'■ 
It  may  be  said  in  reply,  as  it  has  been,  that  much  of 
what  is  common  to  the  versions  came  into  both  out 
of  the  Vulgate,  by  which  one  was  determined,  the 
other   influenced.      Still   it   is   true   that   what    Mr. 
Marsh  elsewhere  caUs  "  the  sacred  and  religious  dia- 
lect "  which  has  continued  the  language  of  devotion 
and  of  Scriptural  translation  to  the  present  day,  was 
first  established  in  England  by  the  Wycliffe  version  ;t 
and  that  what  Mr.  Froude  has  characterized  as  the 
peculiar  genius,  of  mingled  tenderness  and  majesty, 
of  Saxon  simplicity  and  preternatural  grandeur,  which 
breathes  through  the  latest  translation,!  had  its  ex- 
ample, and  partly  its  source,  in  the  earliest.    Tyndale, 
Coverdale,  Rogers,  Cranmer,  the  Geneva  translators, 
Kino-  Tames'  revisers,  have  all  contributed  something 
to  the  work,  but  they  only  heighten,  without  obscur- 
ing, its  early  lustre ;  and  the  final  revision  for  which 
we  look,  with  all  the  aids  which  the  most  untiring 


*  Lects.  on  Eng.  Lang.,  p.  627. 

t  Lects.  on  Origin  and  Hist.  E?ig.  Lang.,  p.  365- 

X  Hist,  of  Eng.,  Vol.  III.,  p.  86. 


72  Oration  at  Nciv   York. 

scholarship  has  gathered,  must  still  abide,  in  its  vo- 
cabulary, and  in  much  of  whatever  charm  it  may 
possess  through  noble  and  harmonious  forms  of  ver- 
bal combination,  on  the  primitive  foundations  of 
five  hundred  years  since. 

How  vast  the  impression  produced  by  the  version 
which  thus  burst  into  use,  not  on  language  only,  but 
on  life,  in  the  whole  sphere  of  moral,  social,  spiritual, 
even  political  experience,  who  shall  declare  !  To  the 
England  of  his  time,  confused,  darkened,  with  dim 
outlook  over  this  world  or  the  next,  the  Lutterworth 
Rector  brought  the  superlative  educational  force. 
He  opened  before  it,  in  the  Bible,  long  avenues  of 
history.  He  made  it  familiar  with  the  most  enchant- 
ing and  quickening  sketches  of  personal  character 
ever  pencilled.  He  carried  it  to  distant  lands  and 
peoples,  further  than  crusaders  had  gone  with  Richard, 
further  than  Alfred's  messengers  had  wandered.  It 
saw  again  the  "city  of  palms"  in  sudden  ruin,  and 
heard  the  echoes  of  cymbal  and  shawm  from  the 
earliest  temple.  The  grandest  poetry  became  its 
possession ;  the  sovereign  law,  on  which  the  blaze 
of  Sinai  shone,  or  which  glowed  with  serener  light  of 
divinity  from  tlie  Mount  of  Beatitudes.  Inspired 
minds  came  out  of  the  past — Moses,  David,  Isaiah, 
John,  the  man  of  Idumea,  the  man  of  Tarsus — to 
teach  by  this  version  the  long-desiring  English 
mind.  It  gave  peasants  the  privilege  of  those  who 
had  heard  Elijah's  voice  in  the  ivory  palaces,  of  those 


Effect  of  the   Versfoii  on  English  Life.       J2) 

who  had  seen  the  heaven  opened  by  the  river  of 
Chebar,  of  those  who  had  gathered  before  the 
"temples  made  with  hands"  which  crowned  the 
AcropoHs.  They  looked  into  the  faces  of  apostles 
and  martyrs,  of  seers  and  kings,  and  walked  with 
Abraham  in  the  morning  of  time. 

They  stood  face  to  face,  amid  these  pages,  with 
One  higher  than  all ;  and  the  kingliest  life  ever  lived 
on  the  earth  became  near  and  supreme  to  the  souls 
which  had  known  no  temper  in  rank  save  that  of  dis- 
dain, no  touch  of  power  which  did  not  oppress.     Not 
only  again,  in  lucid  column,   the  pillar  of  fire  mar- 
shalled  God's  hosts.     Not   only  again  were  waters 
divided,    and   fountains   made  to  gush  from    rocks. 
Angelic  songs  were  heard  once  more,  above  the  dark- 
ened earthly  hills.     Again,  as  aforetime,  the  Lord  of 
Glory  walked  as  a  brother  from  Nazareth  and  from 
Bethany,  strewing  miracles  in  his  path,  yet  leading 
the  timid  to  the  mount  which  burned  with  peaceful 
splendor,  showing  the  penitent  his  cross,  walking  with 
mourners  to  the  tomb.     From    the  paradise  of   the 
past  to  the  paradise  above,  the  vast  vision  stretched ;    , 
and  gates  of  pearl  were  brightly  opened  above  the 
near  and  murky  skies.     The  thoughts  of  men  were 
carried  up  on  the  thoughts  of  God,  then  first  articu- 
late to  them.     The  lowly  English  roof  was  lifted,  to 
take  in  heights  beyond  the  stars.     Creation,   Provi- 
dence,  Redemption,  appeared,  harmonious  with  each 
other,   and  luminous  with   eternal  wisdom;    a  light 


74  Oration  at  New   York. 

streamed  forward  on  the  history  of  the  world,  a 
brighter  light  on  the  vast  and  immortal  experience  of 
the  soul ;  the  bands  of  darkness  broke  apart,  and  the 
universe  was  effulgent  with  the  lustre  of  Christ! 

Of  course  this  influence  was  not  all  felt  by  many 
minds  ;  perhaps  not  in  its  fulness  by  any.  But  it  was 
thenceforth  at  home  in  England ;  at  home,  to  stay. 
It  smote  with  irresistible  energy  on  the  rings  and 
fetters  of  Pontifical  rule.  It  contributed  a  force  of 
expansion  and  uplift  to  every  soul  on  which  its 
quickening  blessing  fell.  It  became  an  instrument 
of  popular  liberty,  as  wxll  as  a  means  of  elevation  and 
grace  to  personal  souls.  There  was  the  English  Re- 
naissance !  Leighton,  and  Owen,  and  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor, became  possible  afterward ;  Bacon  and  Hooker, 
Shakspearc  and  Milton,  Dry  den  and  Wordsworth, 
and  Robert  Burns.  The  world  of  letters  had  found 
a  language  for  the  majestic  periods  of  Burke,  for  Ad- 
dison's or  Macaulay's  prose,  for  Gibbon's  sentences, 
moving  as  with  the  tread  of  an  imperial  triumph.  The 
world  of  life  had  received  to  itself  a  transfiofunnsf 
energy.  Celestial  forces  mingled  thenceforth,  more 
vitally,  widely,  with  human  thought ;  and  the  inde- 
structible holy  influence,  though  often  interrupted, 
never  ceased,  till  it  came  to  its  final  inevitable  fruition 
in  the  perfect  liberty  of  the  Scriptures  in  England."^'* 


*  Hume  speaks  slightingly  of  Wycliffe — as  might  have  been  expected 
from  a  blind  giant,  discoursing  of  distant  electric  flames — but  in  no 
small  measure  he  owed  his  opportunity  to  weave  choice  words  into  a 


Last  Labors  of  Wy cliff e.  75 

The  subsequent  months  of  Wydiffe's  Hfc  were  Hke 
the  stormy  afternoon,  whose  turbulence  ceases,  whose 
glooms  are  scattered,  in  the  sunset's  golden  tranquillity. 
An  ecclesiastical  assembly  at  London — called  by  him 
''the  Earthquake  Council,"  because  it  w^as  shaken  by 
a  tremble  of  the  planet — condemned  his  doctrines,  but 
left  him  untouched,  apparently  because  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Commons.*  Oxford  repelled  or  evaded  the 
attacks  repeated  upon  him,  but  at  last  yielded  to  a 
royal  mandate,  and  his  long  connection  with  it  was 
closed.  In  November,  a.d.  1382,  he  again  defended 
his  doctrine  before  the  Provincial  Synod  assembled 
in  Oxford,  and  again  escaped  personal  sentence 
or  assault.  The  weight  of  his  character  in  the 
country  was  too  great,  his  following  w^as  too  large,  to 
be  challenged  without  danger.  A  vigorous  memorial 
addressed  to  Parliament,  against  the  English  crusade 
for  Urban,  was  one  of  his  last  public  papers,  though 
many  brief  tracts  were  written  and  distributed  to  the 
end  of  his  life,  and  his  sermons  went  forth  as  leaves 
on  the  wind.     Three  hundred  of  them  still  remain. 


pleasing  and  perspicuous  narrative  to  him  of  wliom  Dr.  Vaughan  has 
temperately  said,  that  "  his  writings  contributed,  far  more  than  those 
of  any  other  man,  to  form  and  invigorate  the  dialect  of  his  country." — 
Life  of  Wych'ffc,  Vol.  I.,  p.  243. 

*  His  characteristic  comment  on  the  assembly  was  :  "  The  Council 
charged  Christ  and  the  Saints  with  a  heresy  ;  hence  the  earth  trembled 
and  shook,  and  a  strong  voice  answered  in  the  place  of  God,  as  it  hap- 
pened at  the  time  of  the  last  Passion  of  Christ,  when  He  was  condemned 
to  bodily  death." — See  Neander,  "Hist,  of  Church,"  Vol.  V.,  p.  162. 


76  Oration  at  N'cw   York. 

He  expected  martyrdom, '^^  and  others  as  surely  ex- 
pected it  for  him.  But  he  was  of  that  iron  temper 
which  fire  hardens  into  steel.  His  courage  mounted 
with  occasion  ;  and  he  found  it  as  true  in  his  own 
time  as  it  ever  had  been,  "  the  nearer  the  sword,  the 
nearer  to  God."  In  point  of  fact,  he  was  never  sub- 
jected to  blade  or  brand.  He  wrought  in  patience  at 
his  Rectory,  making  it  a  centre  of  impulse  to  En- 
gland. He  stood  to  his  convictions,  whether  the 
Pope  cited  him  or  not,  though  even  the  powerful 
John  of  Gaunt  fell  from  his  side,  till  a  stroke  of 
paralysis  a  second  time  smote  him,  as  he  was  engaged 
in  Divine  offices,  on  the  day  of  the  Holy  Innocents, 
at  the  close  of  the  year  1384;  and  on  the  final  day  of 
that  year,  as  reckoned  by  us,  he  passed  out  of  earthly 
struggle  and  care,  and  entered  his  immortal  rest. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — I  would  not  exao-^er- 
ate  anything  in  this  man,  but  I  am  sure  we  must 
feel  that  it  is  with  one  of  the  heroical  persons,  making 
nations  greater  and  histories  splendid,  that  we  have 
walked  for  a  little  this  evening.  Of  course  by  his 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  he  stands  in  most 
obvious  relation  to  us.  But  the  brightness  of  his 
fame  in  this  connection  may  have  concealed  from  the 
common  thought  the  various  and  preeminent  ability 
of  the  man,  the  large  place  which  he  filled  in  his  time, 


*  "We  have  but  to  preach  consistently  [constanter]  the  law  of  Christ, 
even  before  the  prelates  of  Csesar,  and  a  blooming  martyrdom  will 
promptly  come,  if  we  abide  in  faith  and  patience." — Trialogus,  iii,  ch.  15. 


The   TrtLc  Greatness  of  Wy cliff e.  yy 

*the  breadth  and  energy  of  his  manifold  influence. 
He  does  not  loom  into  large  proportions  because  we 
see  him  through  morning  mists.  The  more  closely 
we  study  him,  from  different  sides,  the  more  surely 
will  he  win  our  admiring  honor. 

It  is  not  often  that  a  man  without  note,  except 
among  scholars,  steps  forward  suddenly  to  a  principal 
place  in  public  counsel.  He  breaks  into  sight,  amid 
the  turmoil  of  his  time,  as  a  preordained  leader, 
simply  pushed  to  the  front  by  an  imperious  impulse 
of  nature.  It  is  not  often  that  a  man  addicted  to 
subtle  and  large  philosophical  speculation  proves 
practical  and  acute  in  the  sphere  of  affairs.  He 
was  recognized  as  first  among  scholastic  philoso- 
phers," yet  none  surpassed  him  in  political  discussion, 
for  force  of  statement,  for  grasp  of  principles,  for 
sagacity  or  for  daring.  It  is  not  often  that  one 
trained  from  childhood  to  familiar  use  of  unclassical 


*  Henr}'  Knighton,  Canon  of  Leicester,  and  vehemently  opposed  to 
Wycliffe,  yet  spoke  of  him  thus  :  "  Doctor  in  Theologia  eminentissimus 
in  diebus  illis.  In  philosophia  nulli  reputabatur  secundus  ;  in  scholasticis 
discipHnis  incomparabiUs.  Hie  maxime  nitebatur  aliorum  ingenia  sub- 
tilitate  scientiae  et  profunditate  ingenii  sui  transcendere,  at  ab  opinion- 
ibus  eorum  variare." — See  Vaughan's  "Life  of  Wycliffe.,"  VoX.  I.,  p. 
247,  (note). 

Neander  says  of  him  :  "  In  his  pervading  practical  bent,  we  recognize 
a  peculiarity  of  the  English  mind  which  has  constantly  been  preserved. 
But  to  this  was  joined,  in  the  case  of  Wiclif,  an  original  speculative  ele- 
ment ;  an  element  which,  in  those  times,  was  also  especially  developed 
among  the  English,  though  at  a  later  period  it  retired  more  into  thp 
background."— //■/j-/.  of  Church,  Vol.  V.,  p.  135. 


78  Oration  at  New   York. 

Latin  becomes  an  attractive  or  a  competent  writer 
in  a  different  tongue.  He  created  an  English  style, 
rugged,  idiomatic,  whose  sentences  crash  on  the  ear 
like  grape-shot,  whose  words  are  half-battles,  which 
has  an  occasional  subtile  charm,  in  the  fine  beauty  of 
phrase  and  rhythm. 

Blameless,  reserved,  ascetic  In  life,'*  he  was  humor- 
ous, too,  with  jests  that  were  arguments,  and  with  a 
severe,  though  a  beneficent,  sarcasm ;  as  when  it  was 
said  that  the  Scripture  does  not  recognize  friars ;  "  but 
it  does,"  was  his  answer,  "  in  this  text,  '  I  know  you 
not'"!  He  was  radical  in  his  views,  in  Church  and 
State,  while  a  revered  leader  in  a  great  University. 
Of  knightly  blood,  and  bred  among  students,  till  his 
alleged  errors  were  attributed  by  his  enemies  to  his 
subtlety  of  mind  and  inordinate  learning,  he  judged 
the  plain  people  more  correctly  than  themselves ;  he  in- 
terpreted the  prophecy  of  their  vague  aspiration,  and 
was  not  afraid  of  the  final  effect  of  even  their  wanton- 
ness. He  had  a  deep  sense  of  human  sinfulness  ;  but 
a  nobler  eulogy  on  human  nature  than  ever  was  spoken 
was  that  wrought  into  action  in  his  endeavor  to  make 
common  to  men  the  thoughts  of  God.  The  rector 
of  a  parish-church,   he    organized    a    mission  which 


*  "  His  austere  exemplary  life  has  defied  even  calumny  :  his  vigforous, 
incessant  efforts  to  reduce  the  whole  clergy  to  primitive  poverty  have 
provoked  no  retort  as  to  his  own  pride,  self-interest,  indulgence,  incon- 
sistent with  his  earnest  severity." — Milmart,  " Lat.  Chrz'sf.,"  Book  xiii.^ 
ch,  vi. 


The  E^iergy  of  Jiis  Character.  79 

moulded  the  moral  life  of  the  kingdom,  till  every 
second  man  was  a  Lollard.  In  the  solitude  of  his 
study,  he  dared  to  question  the  faith  of  ages,  to  plant 
himself  on  spiritual  certainties,  and  to  balance  his 
mind,  in  the  tranquillity  of  reason,  against  the  whole 
shock  of  church-authority.  Apparently  neither  seek- 
ing nor  shrinking  from  contest,  he  smote  the  Pope 
with  tremendous  anathemas,  at  a  time  when  heresy 
was  more  odious  than  treason,  and  when  reverence 
for  the  Pontiff  was  the  religion  of  Christendom. 
With  instinctive  prescience  he  saw  the  immense  op- 
portunity of  the  time ;  and  living  in  an  age  when  prel- 
ates were  humbled,  and  armies  were  awed,  before  the 
impalpable  power  of  Rome,  without  helmet  or  mitre 
he  stood  invincible  for  pure  freedom  of  soul. 

He  was  equally  great  in  intellectual  force,  and  in 
the  more  vital  and  sovereign  energy  of  character  and 
will.  His  whole  personality  went  into  his  work,  with 
an  utter  consecration.  It  was  this  which  made  him 
so  momentous  a  force  in  the  great  discussion  and  stir 
of  his  time.  It  was  this  which  set  him  in  living  fel- 
lowship with  great  souls  of  the  past.  It  was  not 
Bradwardine,  or  Grostete,  alone,  whom  he  represented. 
The  freedom-loving  archbishops  of  England  had  in 
him  an  unprelatical  successor.  Augustine,  Bernard, 
Thomas  Aquinas,  Peter  Lombard,  their  thought  he 
had  mastered,  and  wherever  their  spirit  had  been  most 
royal  he  also  had  felt  it.     Even  Dominic  and  Francis- 


8o  Oration  at  New    York. 

had  given  to  him  of  the  fire  of  their  souls. '^  The 
Saxon  Church  found  in  this  priest  of  Norman  descent 
the  sympathizing  champion  of  its  long-struggling  and 
unsatisfied  zeal.  So  his  life  had  the  roots,  and  his  in- 
fluence took  the  reach,  which  transcend  the  limita- 
tions of  individual  force,  which  belong  to  essential 
moral  powers,  successively  impersonated,  never  de- 
stroyed, and  at  home  in  all  ages. 

The  years  which  followed  him  in  his  own  country 
were  years  of  darkness,  almost  of  death,  to  the  cause 
with  which  he  identified  his  life.  Almost  singly,  for 
a  time,  he  had  held  antagonist  forces  at  bay.  With 
the  withdrawal  of  his  grand  personality,  the  powers 
which  he  had  arrested  for  the  time  gained  volume  and 
velocity,  while  they  learned  a  new  cruelty  both  from 
previous  fear  and  from  later  success.  His  followers 
were  scattered,  and  multitudes  of  them  were  ruthlessly 
flung  to  the  flood  or  the  flame.  In  the  Convocation 
of  A.D.  1408,  it  was  forbidden  to  translate  the  Script- 
ures or  to  read  any  version  of  them  composed  in  his 
time.f    After  the  Council  of  Constance,  by  which  all 


*"In   one   passage   he    even    places   St.  Francis  of  Assisi  with  his 
mendicancy,  side  by  side  with  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  with  their 

hard  labor And  in  other  places  he  expresses  himself  in  such 

terms  as  to  show  that  he  looks  upon  the  foundations,  both  of  St. 
Francis  and  St.  Dominic,  as  a  species  of  reformation  of  the  Church,  yea, 
as  a  thoujjht  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost  himself." — LccJilcr,  "  John 
Wiclif"  etc.,  Vol  II.,  p.  143. 

t"  Therefore  we  enact  and  ordain   that  no  one   henceforth   do,  by 
his  own  authority,  translate  any  text  of  Holy  Scripture  into  the  English 


His  SiibseqiLent  Influence.  8 1 

his  writings  were  condemned,  his  bones  were  burned, 
and  their  very  ashes  strewed  on  the  stream,  that 
Avon  might  carry  them  to  Severn,  and  Severn  to  the 
sea ;  but  it  was,  as  his  disciples  said,  that  the  World 
might  be  his  sepulchre,  and  Christendom  his  convert. 
There  came  a  time,  even  in  England,  when  the  fatal 
laws  against  his  adherents  fell  dead  in  their  places,  and 
when  the  almost  anarchic  frenzy  wiiich  attended  the 
long  wars  of  the  Roses  gave  way  to  a  peace  in  which 
liberty  thrived.  That  was  the  time  for  which  his 
quickening  thought  had  waited ;  and  having  brooded 
silent  in  the  air  it  then  burst  into  voice,  as  if  touch- 
ing a  thousand  souls  at  once.  Still  earlier  on  the  Con- 
tinent, in  Bohemia,  and  in  Italy,  had  been  felt  his 
vast  impulse.  John  Huss,  Jerome  of  Prague,  Savona- 
rola, repeated  the  onset  of  his  fearless  spirit  on  the 
system  which,  like  him,  they  fought  to  the  death, 
with  their  differing  powers,  w^ith  their  equal  consecra- 
tion ;  and  no  one  of  all  died  in  vain."^"' 


tongue,  or  any  other,  by  way  of  book  or  treatise  ;  nor  let  any  such  book 
or  treatise  now  lately  composed  in  the  time  of  John  Wycliffe,  aforesaid, 
or  since,  or  hereafter  to  be  composed,  be  read  in  whole  or  in  part 
in  public  or  private,  under  the  pain  of  the  greater  excommunication.'' — 
Quoted  by  Vaitghan,  "Life  of  IVydiJfe"  Vol.  II.,  p.  44,  (note). 

*  "  Huss  himself  declares,  in  a  paper  composed  about  the  year  141 1, 
tiiat,  for  thirty  years,  writings  of  Wicklif  were  read  at  Prague 
University,  and  that  he  himself  had  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  them 
for  more  than  twenty  years." — NeaJtder,  "Hist,  of  Church,"  Vol.  V., 
p.  242. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Lingard  says  of  him  :  "  WyclifTe  made  a  new  trans- 
lation, multiplied  the  copies  with  the  aid  of  transcribers,  and  by  his  poor 


82  Oration  at  New    York. 

In  a  copy  of  the  Missal  containing  the  ancient 
Hussite  Liturgy,  in  the  library  of  the  "  Clementi- 
num  "  at  Prague,  richly  illuminated  by  loving  hands, 
WyclifTe  is  pictured  at  the  top,  lighting  a  spark  ;  IIuss, 
below  him,  blowing  it  to  a  flame ;  Luther,  still  lower, 
waving  on  high  the  lighted  torch.  It  is  a  true  pict- 
ure of  that  succession  in  which  others  followed,  with 
brightening  lustre,  this  "Morning  Star  of  the  Refor- 
mation," till  the  sky  was  glowing,  through  all  its  arch, 
with  the  radiance  of  the  up-springing  light ! 

Out  of  that  Reformation  issued  the  new  prophetic 
age  whose  ample  brightness  is  around  us.  It  lifted 
England  to  its  great  place  in  Europe.  It  wrenched 
powerful  states  from  the  Papal  control.  It  gave  a 
wholly  new  freedom  to  spirit  and  thought.  It  filled 
this  land  with  its  Protestant  colonies.  It  opens  to 
us  opportunity  and  hope.  It  is  on  the  work  accom- 
plished by  Wycliffe,  and  by  those  who  followed,  that 
our  liberties  have  been  builded.  They  are  not  acci- 
dental. They  have  not  been  based  on  diplomacies, 
or  on  battles,  however  these  may  have  sometimes  con- 
firmed them.     They  have  not  been  framed,  in  their 


priests  recommended  it  to  the  perusal  of  their  hearers.  In  their  hands 
it  became  an  engine  of  wonderful  power.  Men  were  flattered  by  the 
appeal  to  their  private  judgment ;  its  new  doctrines  insensibly  gained 
partisans  and  protectors  in  the  higher  classes,  who  alone  were  acquainted 
with  the  use  of  letters  ;  a  spirit  of  inquiry  was  generated  ;  and  the  seeds 
were  sown  of  that  religious  revolution  which  in  little  more  than  a  cent- 
ury astonished  and  convulsed  the  nations  of  Europe." — }Iist.  of  Eng., 
Vol.  III.,  p.  311. 


Effects  of  the  Bible  upon  Society.  83 

solid  strength,  hy  the  theories  of  philosophers,  or  the 
inventive  devices  of  statesmen.  They  are  founded  on 
the  Bible,  made  common  to  all.  They  have  been 
wrought  to  their  vast,  enduring,  symmetrical  propor- 
tions— more  lovely  than  of  palaces,  statelier  than 
cathedrals — by  their  wisdom  and  patience  who  had 
learned  from  the  Bible  that  human  power  has  no 
authority  over  the  conscience ;  that  man,  through 
Christ,  has  inheritance  in  God  ;  and  that,  by  reason 
of  his  immortality,  he  has  a  right  to  be  helped,  and 
not  hindered,  by  the  Government  which  is  the  organ 
of  society.  If  the  England  of  Victoria  is  different 
from  that  of  Richard  Second,  if  the  present  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  is  a  holy  apostle  by  the  side 
of  Courtenay  or  Arundel,  if  the  story  of  what  the 
kingdom  then  was  appears  to  men  now  a  ghastly 
dream — it  is  because  the  Bible  w  as  made,  through  toil, 
and  strife,  and  agony  of  blood,  the  common  possession 
of  the  people  who  dwelt  "  on  the  sides  of  the  North.  "^'" 
Thank  God  !  that  the  Book,  which  at  Oxford  and 
Lutterworth  was  first  transferred,  in  its  whole  extent, 
to  the  English  tongue,  which  this  Society  has  so 
widely  distributed,  and  for  whose  final  revised  trans- 


*"  Almost  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Luther,  nearly  the  same 
doctrines  as  he  taught  had  been  maintained  by  WycklifTe,  whose  disci- 
ples, usually  called  Lollards,  lasted  as  a  numerous,  though  obscure  and 
proscribed  sect,  till,  aided  by  the  confluence  of  foreign  streams,  they, 
swelled  into  the  Protestant  Church  of  England."— //^//aw,  "  Const. 
Hist,  of  Eng.;'  Vol.  L,  p.  57- 


84  Oratio7i  at  New    York. 

latioii  \vc  now  arc  looking,  has  been,  is  now,  and  shall 
be  henceforth,  the  American  Inheritance  :  expounded 
from  the  pulpit,  taught  in  the  household,  at  home  in 
the  school.  It  is  not  ours  by  our  own  effort,  but  by 
this  struggle  of  many  generations.  It  is  not  ours  for 
our  own  time  alone,  but  for  the  centuries  which  shall 
follow.  The  half-millennium  which  has  passed  since 
Wycliffe,  the  millennium  since  Alfred  founded  his 
"  Dooms "  on  its  Commandments,  have  not  wasted 
its  force.  With  a  Divine  energy  it  works  to-day,  on 
every  hand,  for  grace  and  greatness.  No  future  age 
will  cease  to  need  its  law,  and  truth,  and  inspiration. 

To  us  is  given  the  humbler  work  of  making  it  gen- 
eral and  permanent  in  the  land,  as  others  for  us  have 
made  it  free.  In  the  measure  of  our  indebtedness  to 
them,  are  we  responsible  for  this  future.  Let  us  not 
be  unmindful  of  the  great  obligation  !  Let  us  rival,. 
at  least,  their  zeal  for  freedom,  their  devotion  to  truth, 
if  we  may  not  rival  that  invincible  courage  which 
shrank  not  from  prisons,  and  was  friendly  with  Death  : 
that  these  our  years  of  noisy  whirl  may  have  in  them 
still  the  moral  forces  which  gave  to  theirs  majestic 
renown  ;  that  the  frame  of  free  government,  and  of 
spiritual  worship,  builded  on  their  immortal  founda- 
tions, may  be  worthy  the  grand  and  costly  life  which 
cemented  its  base  ;  that  the  latest  age  of  American 
History  still  may  repeat  those  words  of  Wycliffe, 
written  amid  the  heavy  glooms  which  now  are  scat- 
tered, and  in  the  front  of  menacing  perils  which  now 


The    Word  of  God  to  abide  Forever.         85 

are  not :  "I  am  assured  that  the  Truth  of  the  Gospel 
may,  indeed,  for  a  time,  be  cast  down  in  particular 
places,  and  may,  for  a  while,  abide  in  silence,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  threats  of  Antichrist ;  but  extinguished 
it  never  can  be.  For  the  Truth  itself  has  said, 
"  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words 
shall  never  pass  "  ! 


Date  Due 

IIP M 

_...u'^J» 

f«n-«s-. 

— JUb^r^^^tM 

*W'Mi|i«?» 

H*-i& 

^lii^ 

p      1  iJ  vV. 

^ 

i-rioiorriouru 

Pamphlet 
Binder 

Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

CAT.  JAN  21,  1908 


